


Kill Bill

by SuedeScripture



Category: Actor RPF, Lord of the Rings RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Assassins & Hitmen, Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Alternate Universe - Future, Brainwashing, Dubious Morality, M/M, Memory Loss
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2010-08-19
Updated: 2011-10-05
Packaged: 2017-12-20 12:53:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 8
Words: 21,972
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/887500
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SuedeScripture/pseuds/SuedeScripture
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>World peace is attained at a cost. The question is whose cost it was.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the near future, all is not as it seems. The wars you may remember have finally ended. The United Nations and Global Assembly maintain a level of peace across boundaries, religions and governments our world has not seen in history. Nuclear crises have passed. Incurable illnesses have waned. But the handshakes, speeches and smiles were only what the public saw. Some of us remember it differently.
> 
> Or rather, some of us don’t remember it at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for needles in this chapter, and great deal of killing and death at the hands of main characters throughout, casual attitude towards murder and other things of dubious morality. This isn't a pretty universe.
> 
> There will be a whole lot of aliases used in this fic. All of them are taken from each actor's other roles, or in some way reference them in ways that are hopefully obvious to the fandom.

AUGUST 19. LONDON

Jamie sat on end of the hydraulic examination table, swinging his feet. His heels thumped against the table’s pull out steps, and the paper crinkled beneath his seat. The room had a sharp smell of rubbing alcohol and hospital cleaners. He eyed the cabinet with the many locked drawers, and swiftly returned his gaze to his hands, curled together in his lap as the door opened.

“Hello again, Jamie,” Dr. Tyler greeted him warmly, her red lips curving. “How are you?”

“Hello,” he answered, hesitating for two beats before adding, “I’m fine, thanks very much.”

She looked up from the chart, a double take, “Well, that’s different. No ‘how are you’ today?”

Jamie fidgeted and looked down. She wore blue pumps with pointy toes. He shrugged, “People don’t say it that way. What I used to say.”

She pulled her rolling stool across the room and sat nearer to him, crossing her long legs underneath her flowered shirt. “The way you would put “how are you’ in the middle and say it all at once?”

He nodded, and kept looking at the floor. He didn’t like these appointments, but he liked Dr. Tyler. He inhaled, and found her perfume amongst the medicinal aroma of the room, like a waft of wildflowers and dryer sheets. A smell that reminded him of something he could not remember.

“Why did you change the way you say things, Jamie?” she asked.

He lifted one shoulder, unable to articulate why. It made people look at him funny, talk to him funny, like he was stupid. “How… how are you?” he asked.

“Well, I’m fine, Jamie. Thanks very much,” she added wryly, her red lips framing pretty teeth, and patted his knee. “Any other changes you want to tell me about?”

Jamie hesitated. He could tell her how, sometimes, just before these appointments, his head felt clearer, how he’d noticed he could speak to people more easily, how changes from his routine didn’t frighten him as much. He thought about the time he’d seen a name, _Billy_ , on an advert on the side of a bus stop for some film, and stood there staring at it for ages, because somehow, it sounded more like his name than his name did. He thought about telling her about his scary dreams, about the men who get shot in the head with a funny _pew_ noise, or the other dream, the one full of skin and warmth and flashes of purest blue, the ones that woke him soaked and throbbing and with a desperate sense of loss he couldn’t place. But they were only dreams.

“I got—” he swung his feet and felt his cheeks go hot. “I got a job.”

“Really? Oh Jamie, that’s wonderful!” she said, her voice lifting and excited. “What is it?”

He blushed furiously, grinning at his hands, “I wash dishes. Jennings Café on 9th street. Take the Number Eight bus. I wash up and I clear the tables when people finish eating. Some people waste food.”

“That’s really great news. I’ll have to come have coffee and see you,” she smiled, standing up.

Jamie bit his lip at the thought of seeing and talking to Dr. Tyler outside of the doctor’s office. Something about that made him nervous.

“Well then, let’s just get your allergy shot done, then, shall we? We can’t have you missing a new job because you’re all clogged up, hmm?” Dr. Tyler said, using her tinkling keys to unlock the cabinet with many drawers, placing the little brown vial she’d pulled from the pocket of her white coat on top of it. It was always the fourth drawer down, the one with the syringes and needles, wrapped in paper that peeled apart.

Jamie looked away as she readied the shot, feeling his heart race. He hated the needles, but he had learned to be still for these shots every month, otherwise two big frightening nurses came in and held him down. He’d learned to look away and count to ten while it stung and froze under his skin and made his head feel muddy afterward.

“It’s going to be winter soon,” he commented.

“Yes,” said Dr. Tyler, “It’ll be cold and rainy again.”

“I don’t think I have allergies in winter. No flowers in winter. No trees pollinating. I saw that on the telly.”

Dr. Tyler nodded, pulling the needle from the bottle with a tiny rubbery snick, the syringe full of the icy liquid. She flicked it with a manicured nail and squirted a little from the tip into the bin with the red biohazard symbol on it.

“Why do I have to get shots in the winter?” he asked, looking carefully from the needle to her face.

She looked surprised for an instant, but then approached with the syringe at her side, “Well, it’s best to get the shots all year round. That way it doesn’t make you feel funny if it’s been a long time, understand? You get very sick if you go off of your medicine.”

He looked at her eyes, the way they shifted off to the left as she spoke. That was odd.

“You don’t like to be sick, do you, Jamie?” she smiled sweetly.

“No.”

“Can you be good for your shot today?” she asked, “I don’t want to have to call in the nurses.”

Jamie swallowed and hesitantly pushed the sleeve of his jumper up to expose the tender inside of his elbow and the veins pulsing beneath his skin.

“That’s very good,” she smiled and sat again on her stool, tying the rubber tube tight round his arm and swiping his flesh with cold alcohol-soaked cotton wool. Then she spoke in her soft, soothing voice, “Just a little sting now.”

He took a deep breath, turned his head away, and started to count. “One, sugar plum fairy. Two, sugar plum fairy—"

 

 

19811datelog=logsecure

=7177evenstar::login

    

=attn::29248bishop::

    

::7177evenstar:: 28868beesting showing possible resistance.

    

::29848bishop:: Symptoms?

    

::7177evenstar:: Increased eye contact. Increased cognition of surroundings and social inabilities. Succeeded in obtaining entry level employment. Questioned necessity of NLGN inhibitor. Possibly developing immunity? He has been on it longer than the others.

    

::29848bishop:: Unlikely. The rats and capuchins haven’t even managed that. Is he continuing to fight injection?

    

::7177evenstar:: No. In fact he did not display nearly as much intimidation as typical. Allowed more willingly than ever.

    

::29848bishop:: Subsequent appointment reminders have been downloaded to his PID?

    

::7177evenstar:: Yes. Through years end.

    

::29848bishop:: Very well. Report to Lear to step up monitoring. If it continues next month increase dosage to 3ccs.

    

::7177evenstar:: Acknowledged.

    

=29848bishop::logout

    

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PID: Personal Identification Device. In this AU, it's basically your phone, personal ID, credit access/etc in one, issued by the Global Govt. Everyone has one. Or theoretically, everyone _should_ have one.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The world becomes sharper and blurrier at once.

25512datelog=logsecure

=25539lear::login

=attn::29248bishop

::25539lear:: 28868beesting has deviated from medical.

::29848bishop:: How long?

::25539lear:: Approx 1.5 days. Hardly worrisome.

::29848bishop:: Has Wickerman been informed?

::25539lear:: Unnecessary. I will have it cleaned up. I simply thought you might have a professional interest.

::29848bishop:: Over a month without dosage, then? Why am I hearing this from you? Why didn’t Evenstar report to me?

::25539lear:: 28868beesting is under my surveillance, she was right to report to me first. I’m sure it simply slipped her mind to inform you. She is young. Perhaps your sharpness frightens her.

::29848bishop:: This operation cannot tolerate slips of the mind. Or did you not understand that is exactly what we’re trying to prevent? Find him. Get him back online immediately.

::25539lear:: The delay will be accounted for via reactionary symptoms. He’s conditioned to return for dosage. His tests on that showed optimum reception. Or so you said.

::29848bishop:: Dammit Ian. He’s been getting clearer by the month, even with his dosage up to 6ccs. Routine maintenance of code x ops is vital to our security. I was already considering bringing him in for a more permanent procedure. Clearly, I should have done.

::25539lear:: Come now, that can’t be necessary. I would not have signed off on that.

::29848bishop:: When the peace of mind of the world is at stake? I daresay it is. Expendable assets.

::25539lear:: Their human rights notwithstanding. They are people. The man who saved our world deserves to live in it, does he not?

::29848bishop:: Such saccharine poetic gravitas can only come from you, Ian. Your heart is far too invested.

::25539lear:: They are my charges. My jurisdiction. I think I’ll decide whether or not you get to cut them up.

::29848bishop:: Then stop asking mummy for help and follow protocol. Activate the tracer's histamine reaction. Get him back on routine. If Wickerman gets wind of this there will be hell to pay.

=25539lear::logout

 

 

MAY 25. LONDON

Jamie’s back itched. It itched badly, the sort he simply could not reach, right between his shoulder blades. It was driving him nearly round the bend.

He replaced all the coffee filters and divvied the grounds into them, pushing them back into place to perk, looking up as the bell above the door rang. He smiled; it was the young dark haired man with the little computer tucked beneath his arm.

He tried again to reach the itch, but to no avail. He gathered up empty plates from several patrons that had just left as the young man slid into his usual booth. He pushed them into the already full dish bin, and carried it back to the wash station, next to another full one. Nigel had called in with a broken arm, and the usual waitress Sarah was on holiday, so to was up to Jamie to both wait the front and eventually get to the dishes with Jennings doing all the cooking. Just a few months ago, this would have frightened him terribly, but things had been changing, somehow.

By the sink, he pushed his back up against the corner of the wall and got a little relief from the itch on the edge, but it returned as soon as he walked back to the front. He felt over-warm, almost feverish, and the itch simply would not ebb.

The young man with the dark curls smiled dazzlingly, as he usually did when Jamie brought his tall glass of juice. “I like orange juice,” he said, as he always did, his fingers clutching the laptop.

“Aye. Did you see Dr. Tyler?” Jamie asked, pointing at the little bit of cotton wool bandaged to the young man’s elbow. At his last appointment a month ago, he’d seen this same young man in her office while waiting for his own allergy shots. He’d been coming to breakfast daily at Jenning’s Café ever since. Jamie could not remember his name, but his face was quite memorable.

“Yeah,” the young man picked at the plaster, frowning, his eyebrows gathering in the middle. Instead he grabbed for his laptop, opening it and plugging his PID into the side, smiling up at Jamie. “I like computers.”

“I know,” Jamie grinned. Their conversations were nearly identical every day, he realized. It was only now that he noticed how odd that was. “Same breakfast as usual, then?”

“Strawberry waffle!” the young man grinned beguilingly, pulling a wireless earphone from his pocket and pushing it into his ear. “I like–“

“Strawberries,” Jamie said with him, his gut clenching weirdly at the sight of the earphone.

He put in the ticket and went back through the kitchen, just for a minute. “Food’s coming up, Jamie,” Jennings said from the griddle as he passed.

“Aye.” He ducked into the cold storage for a minute, just to take the prickle of heat under his skin down. He felt weird, his stomach squeezing. And that infernal itch! He pulled off his paper hat, and tried again to reach it, to scratch it, twisting and stretching to reach.

“Oi, Holmes, get this food out t’yer table!”

“Right, boss, jus’ a mo.” Jamie wriggled his hand awkwardly as far as it would go down the back of his shirt to scratch. If he could just reach it—

“Now, Holmes!”

Sighing, he pulled his hand from his shirt and wiped a drop of sweat from his brow, pulled his deli hat back on, and headed out from between the cold storage shelves. Pulling the plates of food from the window and onto a tray, he hoisted it to shoulder level and carried it to the table.

“About ruddy time,” sniffed the well-dressed, older businessman, tucking his brown paper napkin in his collar, “Any longer and I wouldn’t have time to eat it.”

“Sorry ‘bout that, sir.”

“And bring more coffee, this is cold. Be sure it’s decaffeinated.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And I asked for marmalade.”

“Bring it right out, sir.”

“Hold on, lad, I asked for sausages as well.”

“Yes, sir.”

Jamie waited, just in case the old bastard had anything else to add, but he merely broke the yokes of his eggs with the tines of his fork and set to. Jamie headed back to the window to find the sausages he’d left behind, grabbed the jar of marmalade, and a pot of coffee. Bringing the lot back around to the old man, he set the plate of sausages down, his hand shaking a bit.

“I don’t fancy being served by someone who’s ill,” the businessman said, eying him speculatively, “You don’t look well, lad.”

Jamie looked up at him and then back at the cup of coffee as he poured, “It’s allergies, sir. Missed an appointment for my allergy shot, that’s all.”

The old man grunted. “Load of rubbish. They proved those things obsolete, cortisones and steroids, before the war was over, didn’t they? Make you worse than they do you good. There was a big study done back when I was wet behind the ears at the firm. Changed everything, it did.”

      
_—it made a noise like a soft, short_ pew _, and the man sat with round hole directly between his furry eyebrows, his face frozen in shock, blood trickling down his nose and onto his plate—_  


“—Clumsy git, do you know what it will cost to have this suit cleaned? Why are you just bloody standing there, idiot!” The old businessman was now standing, ineffectually swiping at the coffee stains round the hems of his trousers with his napkin.

Jamie blinked and looked down at the shattered remains of the coffee pot on the floor, the pool of brown speckled with glass shards and a plastic handle at his feet. A wave of nausea hit him in the gut, and he clutched the table and swallowed reflexively against it.

The young man in the corner booth watched the chaos. His eyes met Jamie’s. He arched his brows once, tilting his head inquisitively and then went back to typing on the laptop in front of him, reaching up to adjust a speaker earpiece.

    — _he touched the earpiece with his finger and murmured, “Hive, mule in the barn’s been stung.”_  


      
__::Excellent. Return to hive. Out.:: __  


      
_He ducked down behind the sill and swiftly disassembled the rifle_ —

“Holmes, you pillock, what on earth…?” Mr. Jennings came round the counter, collecting up the large pieces of glass and gathering together the rest with a towel.

The businessman continued hollering to any of the patrons who would listen. "These shoes are Italian leather, I’ll have you know.”

“Holmes. Oi, Jamie!”

Jamie looked up at the snapping of fingers under his nose, his boss’ face livid and confused. “Back in the kitchen. Go on, now, wait for me.”

“The least you could do is apologize, couldn’t you, you idiotic little twat, eh? Are you touched or what?”

Jamie gave the businessman one last glance, turned on his heel in the pool of coffee, and walked back to the kitchen in time to vomit in the nearest appropriate receptacle.

“Holmes, you… Jamie?” Jennings called as he returned, then stopped short finding him clutching the sides of the bin under the dish sink.

“Sorry, boss.” Jamie stood up, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand, then shoved it down the back of his shirt. The itch between his shoulder blades was maddening. Sweat broke along his forehead.

“What the bloody hell is wrong with you? You ill?” Jennings asked, pushing him onto a stool.

“No,” Jamie gasped, reaching for the itch, “I missed my allergy shot, yesterday. Missed my appointment. Only you called me in to work when Nigel didn’t show, so I had to miss it.”

Jennings took off his own deli hat and scrubbed at the back of his head, then turned to the sink to wash coffee from his hands. “Allergies or not, Jamie, that man’s going to send me his cleaning bill in the next few days because of you, to say nothing of his bloody fancy shoes. You’ve been out of sorts all day, last few days, matter of fact. I thought you were getting better, weren’t you? And you have, you’re not nearly so shy anymore. You said your head had cleared somehow. But I can’t have you in the front waiting tables if your condition sends you into fits like that. Shouldn’t have that anyway, lad your age.”

“I guess not,” Jamie slumped over, and grabbed for the bin again. Mr. Jennings made a face and looked away until he was through being sick.

“Go home, Jamie. Get to your doctor or summat. I’ll call Joe in, he’ll just have to owe me one.”

Jamie nodded at his shoes, trying not to scratch again. Jennings turned away, pulling his PID out.

“Oi, Boss?” Jamie called.

“Eh.”

“What d’you mean, lad my age shouldn’t have any sort of… condition?”

Mr. Jennings paused in thumbing through contacts to glance at him. “Thought they got rid of most of ‘em, is all. Allergies and the like. Before the wars ended. Things as come from the overprocessing of foods, pesticides and junk used to be in the water. These days it’s all back to nature, innit? Nearly got rid of all that, ‘specially in your generation. All we’ve left to kill off is the bloody viruses. S’odd you’d have ‘em still.”

Jamie furrowed his brows. He could not remember the end of the wars. There was a lot he couldn’t remember. “Aye.”

He got up, stood still for a minute to see of the nausea had passed, then tugged his apron off, draping it over the dish sink and tossing his sweaty paper hat in the bin.

“Jamie,” Jennings called back.

“Boss.”

“Yer a good lad, you know. Come back when you feel better, I’ll see if I can’t keep you on as a dishwasher. And take that bin out with you.”

Jamie twitched his shoulders, gathering up the bin’s liner and tying it. He wouldn’t come back. “Mind if I use the loo before I go?”

Jennings shrugged, and Jamie left the rubbish by the back door before he bee-lined for the toilets. Once inside, he ripped off his shirt and reached over his head to his back, using his other arm to force his elbow back a few more crucial inches to get at that spot… _there_.

He scratched and scratched, but the itch would not relent. His fingernails passed over the spot. There was a rise there, a bubble, a grain of sand or some infernal parasite underneath his skin, he was sure of it.

He turned to the mirror and twisted his head around to see it, red and nearly raw. It looked odd for a welt or a bug bite, oblong, nearly rectangular, white of skin in the center of a speckling rash. It itched so badly he couldn’t stand it.

Bending over the sink so he could see in the mirror, he pushed his elbow back again to scratch, hard, digging in his nails until his skin tore and bled, until the raised thing was most definitely a _thing_ , something that shouldn’t be there, a foreign body inside him. He tore at it, ignoring the pain, biting his lip to keep from making a noise as he worked around it, prised his fingernails beneath it, and finally it flipped out and fell to the floor with a metallic ping.

Jamie stooped, picking up the bloody, alien thing that had come out of him, feeling sick to his stomach again. He twisted the taps on to rinse the blood from it, wiping it gently with the pad of his thumb under the water. It was about the size of a grain of rice with several hair-like wires coming out, like the legs of a spider. Looking closely, he saw tiny coils of wires and lights inside the clear plastic shell, like an infochip, a tracking chip people were required to put in their pets. One of tiny lights inside it changed from a steady green to a blinking red as he watched, like a bomb, speeding up until the red light pulsed as quickly as his heartbeat.

He dropped it in the sink, and turned the taps on full force, pushing the thing down the drain, along with the streams of his own blood. Twisting around again, he looked at the place it had come from, oozing down his spine. It stung, but the itching was gone. Wetting a handful of paper towels, he bent to awkwardly blot the place until the bleeding seemed to ebb.

The loo door opened and in came the young man with dark curls. He looked at Jamie curiously, his face perplexed. “Does that hurt?”

Jamie straightened up, reached for his shirt and tugged it back on, carefully eying the young man, who set his laptop on the shelf above the toilet as he turned to it and unzipped. Jamie threw the bloody towels in the bin and left, glancing over his shoulder as he grabbed up his jacket, feeling his t-shirt stick to the wound as he pulled it on. Leaving through the back door, he went round through the alley to the street side. Shoving his hands in his pockets, he strode to the right, daring to glance behind himself at the end of the block. No one was there.

Something very odd was going on.

 

 

26512datelog=logsecure

::29848bishop::login

=attn::25539lear::

::29248bishop:: What news on 28868beesting?

::25539lear:: No news. Running search and idscan.

::29848bishop:: Find him. Activate the tracer. Get code M ops out on the streets if you have to.

::25539lear:: The tracer was found in the plumbing of his workplace. Assume he managed to pull it out.

::29848bishop:: And his PID?

::25539lear:: Memchip in a storm drain.

::29848bishop:: Shit. Do you have any idea what that means?

::25539lear:: Don’t be patronizing. I’ve been here much longer than you.

::29848bishop:: Too long. Worried now, are you?

::29848bishop:: I always knew putting these people back into society was asking for trouble.

=25539lear::logout


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Paranoia abounds, and is found to be valid.

03712datelog=logsecure

=29848bishop::login

=attn::27522wickerman::

::29848bishop:: A code x op has dropped from the grid.

::27522wickerman:: How long.

::29848bishop:: 1 month 11 days. Over 2 months since last NLGN dose.

::27522wickerman:: You’ve allowed a code x op to go off program for that long? Why was I not informed the moment the op dropped from sight?

::29848bishop:: I am merely your medical science head, sir, I claim no responsibility. Lear did not see fit to inform you at all, so I took it upon myself.

::29848bishop::connection terminated.

=attn::25539lear::

::27522wickerman:: Why have you not informed me we’ve had a code x breach?

::25539lear:: I initially believed the op would return as he was conditioned before it became an issue. Apparently Bishop’s contribution to our cause has a flaw.

::27522wickerman:: Activate tracers and have him brought in by force.

::25539lear:: We’ve verified he has removed his tracers. I have had code m ops posted at all his routine locations for some time in case he should return and scanning all surveillance grids available to us. I think we must assume he is now self-aware.

::27522wickerman:: Which op is this?

::25539lear:: 28868beesting.

=25539lear::connection terminated.

=attn::171244captain::

::27522wickerman:: We have a code x breach. All eyes and ops search and intercept 28868beesting, maximum priority 1.

::171244captain:: Sir, my team does not typically handle code x ops. That is Lear’s jurisdiction.

::27522wickerman:: Your security status has been upgraded. Search and intercept 28868beesting.

::171244captain:: Yes sir.

::171244captain::logout

 

 

*

 

 

17712datelog=logsecure

::171244captain::login

=attn::27522wickerman::

::171244captain:: 28868beesting located. 81276rockstar in place to intercept.

::27522wickerman:: Eliminate target.

::171244captain:: Clarify sir. Eliminate or intercept?

::27522wickerman:: Eliminate the target. Scrub the scene. Understood?

::171244captain:: Yes sir.

 

 

JULY 17. MANCHESTER.

The mop hit the linoleum with a definitive splat. Billy rubbed a knuckle into his eye and yawned, pushing the mop through the drips of beer on the floor.

“Come on, lads,” Angus’ gruff voice carried from the front of the pub, urging the last of the stragglers out, “Got to close her up now. We’ll all be here again tomorrow, like as naught.”

The mop squelched, pushing water, bleach, old beer and crumbs around the peeling floor of the kitchen. Billy fought the need to yawn again, but it tingled on his soft palette until he had to let it break. The sound of mugs being collected trickled back to him, the clink and thunk of them being put into the dish bins. His eyes were dry with fatigue. He wavered to one side, catching his weight as his hip thumped against the worktop, and drawing the mop handle back up to balance himself. What had it been now? Three nights without sleep? Four? But he couldn’t. Not with those cold eyes haunting him, following him.

“Off you go, son,” Angus’s voice floated back again, urging one last drunk out the door.

There was a gasped “Oi!”, and a short, sharp _pew_ sound. The world stopped. Something clicked in Billy’s mind. He was instantly wide awake.

Seconds later, the sound came again, twice. Glass exploded both in front of and behind him, from the mirrored shelves full of spirits between the bar and the kitchen, and the window in the door to the alley. Billy dove, and the mop handle clattered to the ground, bouncing once on the floor by his ear among sparkles of glass shards, liquor and water. Before it hit the ground a second time, the door between the bar and the kitchen was thrust open, the world moving in slow motion, and before he could move Billy was staring down the long blue barrel of a gun. The face of the young man holding it was blank, expressionless, his eyes the same steely color, determined and deadly. His finger on the trigger squeezed—

The gun jammed.

By the time surprise registered in those eyes, Billy instinctively grabbed for the man’s wrist, jumping up to twist it round behind his back and slam him gut first into the metal sink. With the pop, the man’s shoulder dislocated, and the gun fell from his hand as he grunted in pain. Billy threw him downward by the torso, his nose connecting with the faucet as he folded over the pile of soaking dishes.

Billy swiftly stooped, grabbing up the gun. With the groan, the man stumbled round, his nose spurting blood, his left arm coming up in a fist. Billy sidestepped the feeble punch and pistol-whipped him smartly on the head. He crumpled in a heap in the floor.

Suddenly the world was silent again, but for the heaving of Billy’s breath. He deliberately slowed it, closing his lips and taking in the smell of alcohol and blood through his nose. With the toe of his trainer, he tilted the unconscious gunman’s face up. He was dressed as your common pub-crawler, jeans and a leather jacket over a Manchester jersey, with tousled blondish hair and that typically British look, mouth open, his jaw crooked, as though it had been broken at some point. His eyes were half-closed, rolled back, his lashes black and damp, his nose bulbous, oozing blood down his cheek and flowering into the puddle of water and spirits below. He was younger. Early thirties, maybe. He ought to be out chatting up women or having a family, not looking to gun someone down.

Billy did not remember being thirty, or chatting up anyone.

He shook the fuzziness from his head and stepped over the sprawled man to the door leading to front of the pub, finding the body of Angus with a small round wound leaking blood from his temple, eyes staring at the back of the bar, unseeing.

He swallowed, edged around the body and used a pen to punch the keys to open the cash drawer, pocketing the day’s money. Ducking back through the kitchen, he leapt over the unconscious man and stumbled out into the alley. The adrenaline of the fight was leaving him now, and he slumped against the brick, more exhausted than ever.

Still clutched in his hand was the gun, its barrel elongated by a silencer, his finger on the trigger. He moved his thumb to the button to eject the magazine, catching it before it fell. The bullet that had jammed, the bullet meant for him was still there, caught up slightly crooked at the top of the casing. He didn’t know how he knew how to handle the gun, how to take it apart. A wave of vertigo slammed into him, the sounds of shouts and gunshots, visions like a melting film reel, faces surprised in their death, blood leaking from round holes between their eyes. He bent at the waist and retched on the wet paving stones.

Dropping the gun by his sick, he ran until the pub was blocks behind him, then fell to a brisk walk, turning up the collar of his shirt against the rain.

Pushing several of the notes from the register under the landlady’s door with her post, he climbed the creaking staircase up to the damp attic room where he’d stayed for the past month. He figured he had until morning to disappear.

He turned to the room. There was little of what might be called comforts. A mattress lay on the floor with a moth eaten blanket thrown over it, pushed into the corner by the small window. A few milk crates served as table, chair or shelf, whatever was necessary. A duffle bag held clothes, small wadded piles littered the floor, along with a steno pad and a pen stuck through the wire binding, a torch, a pocketknife, a roll of duct tape he’d bought to seal the drafty cracks in the window, an electric kettle and packets of instant coffee, a few books borrowed from the local library. But it was the tiny fridge he stumbled to as his stomach growled, remembering the carton of Chinese he’d stashed inside a few days ago along with a half empty bottle of cheap pilsner.

The food now tasted funny and the beer stale, but he didn’t care, scooping up the remaining forkfuls of rice, chicken and peas. He sat on the mattress as he chewed, knees feeling like jelly. He yawned, dropped the empty carton on the floor and drained the bottle.

He pulled his PID from his pocket, bringing up the ident files again, scanning them, looking for whatever could have a man chasing him for days now. Jamie Holmes had been left in London. He’d paid a wad of cash in a shady back room on the East End for a new memchip, a new name and a new past. What was more, he didn't even feel like that man anymore, someone so innocent, so simple. It wasn’t his name, but he’d trained himself to respond to it whenever necessary, and he'd done the same with the new one. The name he called himself now, Billy, had come off an old film poster, one that simply resonated somehow in his mind. He didn’t understand why.

Four nights without sleep. But he couldn’t. Someone was definitely after him, tonight had made that perfectly clear. It had been a mistake to stay here as long as he had. He could not sleep until he was in a new place. Could not sleep as long as those cold, bright eyes haunted him, glimpses in a crowd, across a street, fleeting, melting away as soon as he looked again. A month of paranoia. Months of dreams of dead faces, pulling spiders out of his flesh, running, always running. He couldn’t sleep until he got out of Manchester, out of England. He’d go north, or maybe west, far west, somewhere else.

He grabbed the duffle and began stuffing it with the nearest items, reaching for the notepad when he heard it. A creak, the loose fourth stair from the top that always squeaked, and his landlady was not meant to return from her holiday for a few days, at least. He’d led the bastard right to his door.

Grabbing for the heavy torch, Billy darted soundlessly to the side of the doorframe, into the toilet doorway beside it. The wait was agony as the creak paused, the door handle twisted, loose in its bolting, a door with a horribly ineffectual lock. The door swung forward silently on its hinges, and the steely blue silencer advanced into the room, the gun he had left. That was a mistake. Billy held his breath, sank into the shadows and waited.

Waited to see the hands, the grip trained military fashion, but the right one somewhat loose. Arms, shoulders, one awkwardly dropped, that rounded nose, hastily mopped of blood, one nostril stuffed with a wad of tissue, bruised and red.

As the gunman began to sweep the room, Billy struck viciously with the heavy torch to the back of the neck.

“Fuck!” the man cried, and Billy flattened him to the floor and wrested the gun from him a second time. This time he turned it on the man, who froze.

“Who are you?” Billy growled.

The man said nothing.

Billy thumped the barrel of the silencer hard against the man’s temple, just behind the eye. “I asked who th’ fuck you are. Why are you after me? Why are you trying to kill me?”

The man said nothing. His eye focused on the duffle by his nose, closed his mouth and slowly exhaled, blood bubbling a little at one nostril. Acceptance. This man would rather die than talk. Billy squeezed the trigger. The gun jammed. Expecting to watch the life drain from the man, to see blood and mess and to remember this face, Billy gasped at its lack. The man didn’t even flinch.

Still straddling him, Billy slid the gun away across the floor and instead squeezed the man’s dislocated right shoulder, wanting pain, needing a reaction. The man whimpered, and Billy took satisfaction in the way his bones did not meet properly under his palm. “Don’t you move, or I’ll do the other one for you as well,” he growled.

He looked around for something to help hold the man, spotting the duct tape. He bound the man’s wrists behind his back, tightly, all the way down and over his curled fingers for good measure. He did his ankles too, and his knees, then rolled him over and sat him up, propped him against the large wooden post supporting the roof in the middle of the room and bound the man tightly to it. He used the last bit of tape on the roll to cover the man’s mouth. All the while, those eyes watched him, steely and cold. He found a dirty shirt on the floor and used it to cover them up, so they couldn’t haunt him anymore.

“Dunno who th’ fuck you are, but you’re damned lucky my landlady’s on holiday.” Billy muttered, and giggled stupidly as he staggered back, surveying his handy work. He stumbled on the mattress and sat back hard, finding the gun at his feet again.

He picked it up and ejected the magazine, finding the bullet again jammed in the casing. A tiny edge at the top of the clip was slightly bent. He tapped it against the floor, and using the handle of the fork to push the bent edge back, the next bullet popping up and into place, straight and ready. He reloaded the clip and pointed it at the bound man in the center of his room, wondering what variety of medical end Mrs. Donahue would come to when she found a bound corpse in her attic on her return from Brighton.

Billy yawned widely, set the gun on top of the nearest milk crate, and pushed the heels of his hands into his dry, exhausted eyes. “Fucker. Haven’t slept in days because of you,” he grumbled. “What do you want with me? I’m nobody.”

The man’s covered head turned in his direction, a gruesomely comic mask with a shirt bound pirate-like over his head and eyes, a square duct tape mouth, and a bruised, purple, swollen nose poking out between.

“I haven’t done anything.” Billy dropped down on his elbow, bunching the old blanket into a makeshift pillow. If he could just put his head down for a minute. Only a minute.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The enemy of my enemy is, perhaps, my friend.

=18712datelog=logsecure

=27522wickerman::login

=attn::171244captain::

::27522wickerman:: What news.

::171244captain:: Standby. 81276rockstar has not verified.

::27522wickerman:: Deploy another.

::171244captain:: Sir? Should we not wait for verification?

::27522wickerman:: Your op was in place to eliminate a code x who is assumed self aware. It should have been a 30 minute operation. His session will have worn off.

::171244captain:: Trace shows he has moved to a new location. Possibly lying in wait. Seratonin levels just dropped, we were about to reinsert him.

::27522wickerman:: No. If he had time to sleep, then he failed. We do not tolerate failure here. That one was always rebellious, I’m surprised you put him on this. Deploy another and eliminate them both.

::171244captain:: Yes sir.

::27522wickerman:: You will report any developments directly to me, Hill.

::171244captain:: Understood sir.

 

 

JULY 18. MANCHESTER.

Billy jerked awake with a gasp, his head swimming with the remnants of his dreams; staring down the barrel of a gun, being chased, running until his lungs were bursting from those steely blue eyes.

As he looked around, that was exactly what he saw, the man bound to the post in the center of his room. Billy yelped, jerking the ratty blanket up in pure reflex as those eyes crawled over him, the shirt that had covered them shifted and pushed out of his frame of vision, but still draped haphazardly over his hair. The man smirked, the lines beside those eyes deepening as they narrowed, a breath of laughter puffing from his swollen, bruised nose.

“Ynn mmm tnnknn,” the man mumbled beneath the duct tape still covering his mouth, though it looked like he’d tried to free it as well, one edge curled like he’d spent some time rubbing it against the shoulder of his jacket.

Billy tried to settle himself, taking his eyes from the man only briefly enough to glimpse the arrival of dawn through the single grubby window. “Shite.”

“Mmm,” agreed the man, the back of his head softly thumping against the post, letting out a low, painful moan.

Billy’d done a number on him, that was for sure. He looked like he’d gone through hell, nose swollen and bruised, the tape beneath crusted over with dried blood, the lower orbit of one eye blacked, his right shoulder held weirdly dropped. Billy had never beaten anyone up in his life. At least not in the life he knew of. Yet he’d known, almost on instinct, exactly what to do to overpower a man of similar size and weight, twice in the same night.

Reaching over to the milk crate, he picked up the gun. The man rolled his head back toward him, eyeing it and him. Billy flicked the button to drop the clip again, checking to be sure that bullet was still straight and true. He fitted it back in, took the safety off and aimed at the man, right between the eyes. He wouldn’t miss, certainly not at this range. Billy did not know how he knew that.

The man looked steadily back, his eyes meeting Billy’s, the square of tape over his mouth stealing his expression. Then he swallowed, his adam’s apple bobbing beneath his crooked, stubbly chin.

“’S not very nice, is it?” Billy murmured lowly. “Looking down the business end of one of these.”

The man looked back, a slash gathering between his brows, and those eyes changed, widened and then dropped, as if to look down at himself and his pathetic predicament.

“I don’t know much, but I know I don’t want to go out like that,” Billy stood, keeping the pistol trained on the man, who raised his eyes and tracked him. He approached warily and crouched, plucking the shirt from his head, keeping the gun pointed at his face. “Don’t you try anything or I’ll do it.”

The man snorted, his eyes slipping down to his bound body and then back.

“Aye, you’re in no condition anyway,” Billy smirked. With his free hand he tugged at the man’s jacket, heavy with the smell of alcohol from last night, searching the pockets, and finding nothing but a bloody wad of tissue. Tossing that aside, he patted down the man’s jeans, his fingers digging awkwardly to pull a PID from the front pocket. He couldn’t activate his ident files, though, not without freeing his hands to get his thumbprint.

He looked back at him uncertainly. “Anyone follow you here?”

The man did nothing until Billy pushed the muzzle of the silencer against his bruised cheekbone, then he gave a short shake of his head.

“I take this tape off, and you’re not to yell. No one in this neighborhood will care anyway.” The man nodded, bracing his head back against the post. Billy hesitated, then grasped the peeled-up corner of the duct tape and yanked it off fast.

“Fuck,” the man grunted, squeezing his eyes shut and opening his jaw wide to stretch it, taking a deep breath as he looked grouchily back up at Billy. “Won’t need a shave, at least. You talk in your sleep.”

“What?”

“You were talking, earlier, in your sleep. Telling someone to leave you alone.”

Billy sat back on his heel, “I was dreaming of you.”

The man’s brow went up and he grinned smugly, “I have that effect on people. I don’t suppose you have any paracematol? Or something stronger?”

“Why are you after me? Why’d you try to kill me?” Billy asked.

“Mate, I don’t know what the bloody fuck you’re on,” the man chuckled, looking back down at himself, “Must have been a hell of a bender, though.”

Billy gripped his dislocated shoulder, making him cry out. “Last night, you killed my boss with this gun, and then you tried to shoot me, and then you followed me home and tried again. Why?”

Those eyes narrowed, watering with pain and fury now, his reply breathed raggedly through clenched teeth, “You’re round the fucking twist, arsehole, this is England, I don’t even know how to use a gun.”

“Bullshit,” Billy spat, “You shot Angus with _this_ gun. You tried to kill me. Would have done if it hadn’t jammed.”

“Somehow I’m regretting I didn’t manage it, then,” the man growled, “Who the fuck is Angus?”

“The barman at the pub,” Billy raised his eyes, leveling a hard glare at him. “If you can’t remember the man who handed you your last beer, maybe it’s time you left off the drink.”

“Mate,” the man retorted, “I don’t remember last night any more than I remember my first lay or my mum’s tits, but I’m bloody fucking certain I didn’t kill anyone. Why would I?”

“You killed Angus,” Billy snapped, “He’d a wife and three grandchildren. He gave me a job, even though it was clear I was running from something. From you. You murdered a good man, trying to get to me.”

The man simply gazed back like he had three heads, then spoke, “Right. Look, if you’ll just let me go, maybe point me in the direction of the nearest hospital, I promise, I won’t talk. I won’t go to the bill and tell them some maniac beat the hell out of me, held me hostage and waved a gun in my face, alright? I’ll just tell them I had a bad bender and don’t remember anything. Because honestly, _I don’t remember anything_ from last night. So, we’re square. Wouldn’t be the first thing in my life I’ve forgotten.”

Billy blinked at him. “How do you not remember? You were at Angus’ Pub. He made last call, he sent everyone off, and then you shot him in the head.”

“I don’t know any Angus’ Pub. I don’t even…” the man glanced around the attic, as if it would provide reference, “Where are we? I never left Stockport.”

Billy shook his head, “This is Oldham. Who were you with?”

“No one. I don’t know anyone. How did I get here? The last thing I remember I was....” the man paused, thinking, “was eating at Morgan’s. Always eat at Morgan’s on Sunday. They do that Sunday lunch special with the curry.”

“Sunday lunch?” Tilting his head, Billy looked the man over, back at those lively eyes, bright and watery as they opened, genuinely confused and really rather scared, he realized. Not at all the same as the cold, dead, expressionless eyes from last night, looking down the barrel of this gun. “Today’s Thursday.”

The man’s eyes grew wide, then squeezed shut again, moaning as he squirmed in his bindings. “Fuck, I’ll never drink again if I could just keep things together.”

“What’s your name?” he asked, “Do you remember that?”

“Charlie,” the man said, “Name’s Charlie Pace.”

“What else don’t you remember? You said, earlier, you don’t remember things?”

“Mate, I don’t remember half my bloody life, I just try to get by, you know?” Charlie gave a pained laugh, “I have a memory problem. It says right there in my medfile,” he lifted his chin to the PID Billy held.

“You don’t remember—what? Your parents? Your childhood, the wars everyone talks about?” Billy spoke hurriedly, stunned by this.

“No. It’s weird, isn’t it?” Charlie said, “I’d forget my head if it wasn’t attached.”

“I don’t remember any of that either,” Billy confessed. “I don’t remember my whole life up to a few years ago.”

Charlie looked back up at him, “So you go around beating up random people, then? They have therapy for that, you know. Anger management. Get you over your daddy issues or whatever.”

“No, you git,” Billy grated, “I don’t even know how I know how to use this thing. I don’t know how I knew how to beat the hell out of you. I’ve never done this before.”

“Well, you did a good job of it,” Charlie gave an imploring grin, “Mate, please, can you just let me go? I won’t remember you in two days anyway, I’m that forgetful. I’ll just be on my way and you’ll never see me again.”

“No,” Billy said, then stronger, lifting the pistol again, “No. You did try to kill me last night. You’ve been chasing me for four days. You’re in this, same as me, and I need to figure out what the fuck is going on.”

The man eyed the gun again, squirming. “Right, okay, okay, just… Look, mate, whatever happened last night, I need a piss something fierce. D’you mind?”

Billy eyed him with distrust. Letting the man piss meant freeing him, both his legs and his hands.

Charlie sighed, squirming some more, his eyes deep blue and imploring, “Please, can I use the loo? ‘S not going to matter in a minute when I piss down my leg, y’know.”

Billy worried his lip. All he could see was this man standing over him yesterday, with this gun in his face, the utter fear of it, the questions, _why?_. Ever since he’d stopped getting those injections, ever since he’d pulled that thing out of his back, nothing about the world made sense. It hadn’t then either, but as Jamie, he’d just accepted it, nothing had ever given him a reason to think otherwise. He’d never considered choices or the option to ask questions, thus the ability to form his own opinions about anything until his head started clearing. Now the question was whether to trust that the man who just last night had nearly killed him was telling the truth. If anything, he had to rely on the nearly instinctive knowledge that he had at least disabled him enough that he had the upper hand.

He kneed over to the duffle and dug for the pocketknife, using it to cut the tape to free the man from the post. He lifted the gun again, “On your stomach. Go on.”

Charlie gave a small sigh of relief, awkwardly tipping to one side, catching the bulk of his weight on his undamaged shoulder and easing over to his front.

Billy had to set the gun down in order to cut through the bindings on his ankles and then his knees. He straddled the man again, pressing a hand to the back of his neck for a moment, “Don’t you move, even after I’ve done your hands, aye? Wouldn’t take much for this knife to find its way into your spine from here.” He drew the point across the back of Charlie’s neck to illustrate.

“Wouldn’t dream of it.”

Finally, Billy carefully cut through the remaining tape between the man’s wrists and hands, which remained crossed over his back even as Billy peeled the remainder from his fingers, scooting back and grabbed up the gun again, keeping it trained on him from a distance, the knife ready in his other hand. “Get up.”

Charlie gave a sigh, and then a pained whimper as he moved his arms, the right one held awkwardly tight and curled against his torso. He used the other to push himself up from floor and roll over to stand, his eyes cutting to Billy as he slowly stood, his left hand out and spread in placation. He pointed toward the loo doorway, asking permission again, to which Billy nodded, following him in and keeping him at gunpoint from the door as he made his way to the toilet. It was when Charlie struggled a bit to undo his trousers and had trouble even using his injured arm to hold himself that Billy began to suspect he really had hurt him to a point that he wasn’t much of a threat.

Charlie glanced at him, left hand steadying him on the wall above the john and sighing as he pissed, and giving a pathetic chuckle, “Whatever I did last night, I’m sorry, alright? I know I’m beat when I can barely hold my own prick in the morning.”

He finished, awkwardly zipping up and darting a glance at Billy again as he stepped toward the sink and mirror. Very lightly, he poked at the bruise under his eye and at his nose, plucking the bloody tissue from the one nostril. He brought his left hand to his right shoulder, trying to slip the jacket from it but stopping fast with a pinched noise, his face absolutely crumpling with the pain of even trying to move it. Instead he simply gripped the arm, cradling it gingerly as he turned back to Billy and the gun. “So, what did I do to deserve this?”

Billy narrowed his brows, “Thought I just told you? You tried to kill me, remember?”

Charlie frowned, looking at the floor before squeezing his eyes shut. “Can I go home? I don’t…” he opened them again, wide blue and pleading, “I’m sorry I can’t remember. I just… this really hurts, and I just want to go home and forget.” He looked on the verge of tears, his skin pale and clammy, quaking a bit. And he was worse off than Billy was, if he couldn’t remember something he’d been told only minutes before. “Please? I want to forget you.”

A wave of vertigo slammed against Billy at those words, a roiling sense of déjà vu that made his heart clench and his guts twist up. He closed the knife blade and pocketed it. “You can’t go home,” he murmured, “Not any more than I can.”

He backed his way out of the bathroom, Charlie following at a safe distance. Standing by the door, he ordered, “That duffle there. I want you to pack it. The clothes, the torch, that notepad there.” Charlie obeyed, slowly with his good arm, as Billy directed him. “Leave the books, I don’t need them. Right, you carry it.”

Billy indicated the door, unscrewing the silencer from the gun and pushing it into his jacket pocket with Charlie’s PID, “Out, go on. Don’t even think of yelling for anyone out there either.”

“Where are we going?” Charlie asked, the duffle over his good shoulder as he went slowly down the steps.

“Away,” Billy said, “Away from here. Whatever you were meant to do, you didn’t do it. All that means is that they’ll send someone else.” He paused to tuck the gun into the back of his jeans and hide it under his shirt as they stepped out into the bright morning. There were few people out this early. Billy had a count of five within his sights up and down the block in a second, and knew exactly how and what to do to put them all down to escape if he needed to. “You walk in front of me. Don’t act suspicious, you already look a mess. Just walk.”

Billy remained on high alert as they moved, telling Charlie what streets to take, keeping an eye out, ducking down alleys any time anyone looked sideways at them, moving in a generally northward direction along side streets and drainage ditches. He wasn’t sure himself where to go from here, he just knew moving was better than staying still.

The sun was high in the sky when Charlie stumbled, gasping a bit as they trudged alongside a railway, going down hard on his knees.

“Get up.” Billy kept a hand on the gun, wary of the stores and the people just the other side of the rise becoming active with the morning. He skirted to the side, finding Charlie hunched around his dislocated arm, his face looking pallid and pinched. “What’s wrong with you, eh?”

“Christ, where do I start? My arm’s broken, I can’t see much from my right eye, my head’s going to explode and I’m being made to walk to Aberfuckingdeen by a delusional maniac with a gun who is positive I did something I don’t remember doing,” Charlie looked up, looking thoroughly steamed and ill, “Does that about cover it? What the fuck do you want from me?”

Billy looked around, checking all sides before drawing the gun on him again, “I want you to get up.”

Charlie eyed the gun again, breathing heavy as he resignedly obeyed. They walked a short distance to a railway tunnel leading to an abandoned station.

“Stop here, we’ll rest a bit,” Billy told him in the dim of the brick archway, waiting for him to collapse against the wall before sitting across from him and answering his question. “I asked you the same thing, last night. Did you know that? ‘What do you want from me?’” He looked down at the gun. “I want to know why you tried to kill me. I want to know why I can’t remember. I want to know who I am. I want to know why _you_ can’t remember too. Did you never ask yourself that?”

“What difference does it make?” Charlie scowled, leaning back against the bricks and clutching his arm, “I don’t know who you are. I can’t remember anyone anyway. Only way I know my own fucking name is ‘cause it’s in my PID.”

“And you’ve never, ever asked yourself why that is?” Billy asked.

Charlie looked across at him and then away, down the tunnel, as if this was the first time anyone had even suggested such a thing. “I… I drink too much, I can’t hold down a job cause I can’t remember to show up…”

“And yet someone pays your way,” Billy said, “You live in a nice flat and someone, somewhere pays your bills and refills your credit accounts so you never have to think about it, yeah? I’ll bet you go to some pretty doctor for allergy shots as well?”

Charlie pulled his gaze back at Billy’s face, searching and surprised, but then shrugged, wincing afterward, “Dunno how you know that. Dunno why that obligates you to hold me hostage either.”

“You tried to kill me, remember?” Billy offered a small smile. “Besides, you’re the only other person I’ve met who’s like me. You’ve got to be part of it somehow.”

Billy crossed over to him, pulling Charlie’s PID out of his own pocket, activating the ident files and holding it out. Charlie hesitantly put his thumb on the screen to verify, and the files came up showing his photo, his birthdate and other identifiable info, and the same flag at the bottom stating he had an anonymous voucher in the event he ever got into trouble or hurt, that Billy remembered from Jamie’s files. He’d never questioned that either, not until he figured out no one else had that.

“Used to be I only knew my own name because it was in mine,” he said, looking back at Charlie, “Same as you.”

Digging the pocketknife out of his pocket, Billy used it to unscrew and wrench the back of the PID open as Charlie watched, looking as confused as ever. He pried up the memchip, set it on the train track and smashed it with the butt of the knife handle.

He fitted the PID back together and handed it back. “Now you’re not Charlie Pace anymore. You don’t have memory problem, or anything else that thing told you. Come on, we’ve got to keep moving. They’ll know I did that just now.”

The man pulled himself up, and with a last glance at the shattered memchip on the steel, pocketed the PID and then started walking in front of Billy again.

“I didn’t know it was that easy,” the man said quietly, his words echoing a little in the tunnel, “Not to be me.”

“It’s harder than you’d think,” Billy answered. “They still found me somehow, or you wouldn’t be here. You wouldn’t have been sent after me.”

“Who are they?”

Billy strode on for awhile, before the man looked back at him. “I don’t know.”

“Who are you?” the man asked next, dropped back a bit to walk by Billy’s side.

“I don’t know,” he said, looking up at him. “You can call me Billy though.”

“Is that what they called you?”

“No, it’s just a name I like. I don’t know why.”

They strode on for a while. “Dominic.”

“Hmm?”

“That’s a name I always liked.”

“Dominic,” Billy said, his brows gathering at how familiar that seemed, and looked up at him as they came out into the light at the end of the tunnel, and smirked, “I’d say it’s nice to meet you, but it really wasn’t.”

Dominic huffed a tight laugh, still clutching his painful arm, “Not really, no.”

 

=171244captain::login

=attn::27522wickerman::

::171244captain:: Sir, city authorities have discovered a body at last night’s location.

::27522wickerman:: Dammit. Why was it not cleaned?

::171244captain:: It was not 28868beesting. We were not aware a civilian had been killed. It should not have happened.

::27522wickerman:: Of course not. Deploy Erasures. This cannot make it to the media.

::171244captain:: Already been done, sir.

::171244captain:: Sir, 81276rockstar is on the move. His path is erratic, he may still be tracking his target. Should we not reinsert?

::171244captain:: Wait. Just a moment please.

::171244captain:: Sir, 81276rockstar has just compromised his PID.

::27522wickerman:: Dammit. No. Do not reinsert.

::171244captain:: Sir, if he is in 28868beesting’s presence and we reinsert now, he would be able to complete his mission.

::27522wickerman:: No. We know the 1st gen NLGN serum is compromised. I’m questioning Bishop’s entire apothecary at this point. 81276rockstar was always rebellious of the protocol, last night’s mess only proves he was never meant for this program. The 2nd gen insertion serum could have been the culprit there as well.

::171244captain:: Perhaps they are past their expiration date?

::27522wickerman:: Don’t be a smartarse, Hill, I am in no mood. Be sure you are only deploying 3rd gen ops as of now, at least we know they’ve been serviced recently. Just the same, keep them on a tight leash. Any deviations from routine should be questioned. All 2nd gen ops are to be recalled and grounded. I want them all brought in and eliminated before this accelerates.

::171244captain:: Lear won’t be pleased with that.

::27522wickerman:: Lear’s soft feelings are irrelevant. They are expendable assets and they’ve served their purpose as far as we are concerned. Continue monitoring the trace. At least you can still track him that way. Find them both. This cannot get any farther away from us than it already has.

::171244captain:: Yes sir.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Not all those who wander are lost.

JULY 18. SOUTH DAKOTA

The horse breathed hard as he reached the top of the hill, wuffling through his nostrils and chewing the bit. His rider reined to a halt, patting the animal’s neck and dropping the rein to let the horse graze as he surveyed the wide landscape, the massive dome of the world, streaked with clouds of early morning color, stretching over the wide meadows of the valley, peppered with the dark backs of cattle. No fences, at least not as far as the human eye could see. The fences were still out there, however.

The horse’s ears flicked back as the PID in the breast pocket of his shirt vibrated, even that small technological sound an interruption of what was otherwise the closest thing to natural, untouched earth left.

“Damn,” he murmured. Why he even carried the fucking thing around anymore…

He pulled it out, noticing it was the same unrecognized number as it had been the last several days. He’d ignored it. Given the country code, he had an idea who it might be.

With a sigh, he hit the ‘Accept’ button and answered, “How did you find me?”

“Oh, I have my ways,” the warm, British voice answered. “And you’re just as adept at ignoring me as ever, I see. Persistence is an invaluable character trait of mine.”

“Is this online?”

“Oh no. This PID is registered to one Eric Lehnsherr. It has a rather remarkable off-market magnetic hackblock, and it’s on an elderly civilian carrier, so you’ll forgive the quality of the signal. It is wonderful to hear your voice again, Viggo, even for that.” A sigh came over the line, “I need your help.”

“No,” Viggo answered simply, “Whatever it is, it’s not my concern. I want no part of it.”

“Not even for your old friends?”

The horse swished his tail, thumping a hoof against the dirt. A peregrin falcon soared high above, wings sharp as razors as it scanned the hillside for prey. It spotted a ground squirrel, folded its wings and dropped like a knife upon it. A perfect killing machine, borne of nature. Viggo closed his eyes. “I left all that behind.”

“But you do still care for them,” Ian remarked, “You’re only human.”

Viggo didn’t offer words for or against that statement.

“Billy has gone off program. He’s gone so far off, in fact, that he’s got Lee pissing down his leg.”

“It would be Billy, wouldn’t it,” Viggo’s mouth turned up, “If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you sound a bit proud, old man.”

“Well,” Ian intoned a smile himself. “Perhaps a little.”

“So Billy’s off program, and you don’t have the heart to pump him back full of drugs and brain melting hypnoses to control him? You always were soft.”

“Not precisely what _I’d_ do,” Ian said, “But that would be the general idea, if we could find the little bastard in the first place.”

Viggo laughed out loud, his horse turning his head and whickering in interest. “You’ve _lost_ him? Oh, Ian. Scrappy little mongrels should never be allowed off leash.”

“Indeed,” Ian agreed.

“I won’t come in. I won’t find him for you,” Viggo said, “I told you, I’m done with this false utopia you people have brainwashed the world with.”

“Oh no, you’ve found your own, haven’t you?”

“Mine is real, at least. If you’ve lost the world’s best assassin then it’s your own fault if you find yourselves in his crosshairs one day.”

“Hmm,” Ian hummed, and a pause crackled over the line before he spoke again. “Billy has Dominic with him.”

An exhale left Viggo’s lungs as his mouth dropped open, “My God.”

“Yes,” Ian’s voice warmed.

“Do they know?”

“I’ve no idea,” Ian lamented, “All I know is that it was Dominic, of all people, that was sent in after him. And you know Dom.”

“Got trigger happy, did he?” Viggo chuckled.

“He made a mess, for certain. One civilian down, the local police got involved. Billy’s fingerprints and Dominic’s blood there and at a second scene. Now it seems they’re on the lam. Together, as far as we can tell from the trail.”

Viggo’s grin stretched wide. “I can’t believe it. After all this time.”

“Yes,” Ian said, “Which is why I’ve been trying to reach you. They need you. Now more than ever.”

Viggo dismounted, sighing. “I won’t do it. I won’t bring them in for you, Ian. Not back to Melkor.”

“No! Of course not back here,” Ian implored, “I mean for you to help them. You knew them better than anyone. You were there when they were whole, before we broke their minds.”

“I don’t know everything about them,” Viggo shook his head.

“But you were with them during the wars, you heard their stories, you were their family. The first place Billy ran was Manchester, Viggo; it can’t be a coincidence. He’s remembering, consciously or otherwise. Their memories will influence their decisions and that is your advantage.”

Ian paused, his voice lowering, “Help them, my friend. Find them and do what you do best. Vanish, and let them live the lives we stole from them.”

“You’d be violating your entire directive. I don’t think you can get away with it again,” Viggo murmured.

“Not my directive. Not the way I meant it to be; we were all taken in by the idea at first. And no, I don’t believe I will get away with it, as you say. Which is precisely why you must say yes, Viggo.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’ve only maintained my position to watch over those boys, you must know it. And I won't have it for much longer, I’ve already lost any control over how they intend to clean this situation up. It’s only a matter of time before they sniff me out entirely, you know, Lee hasn’t trusted me for years,” Ian told him. “I’m an old man. My secrets will die with me.”

Viggo sighed, his brows pinching, “You don’t mean that.”

“My dear boy, you of all people understand how this world works now. The chances of me escaping this through any other means are negligible,” Ian said, with disturbing acceptance. “The very least I can do to make amends for my sins is to give those young men their freedom. Give them back what they gave up.”

“If I do this, Ian, I want my entire unit. I want my guys back.”

Ian hesitated before he answered, his voice deadly serious. “Then find as many as you can before Melkor does it for you. Orlando’s in London and dumb as a post now with Noble’s poison cocktail in him, should be easy enough. The rest are still active, but they’re being recalled. You don’t have much time.”

“I can manage, if any of my old connections are still reliable,” Viggo sighed. “I suppose I won’t see you, then.”

“There’s something else you should know,” Ian said, “They’ve got a new project. Completely different. Different methods, drugs, everything. I don’t know much beyond that, I was never brought up to that level.”

“Melkor 4.0, eh? Upgrades.”

“Viggo,” Ian sighed, “You remember how Billy was the very best? If they have something better than he was... You must be careful.”

“You know me,” Vig returned.

“Godspeed,” Ian’s voice wavered over the line. “Goodbye.”

The line clicked. Viggo scrubbed at his rough cheek and brought up the call screen, punching in a number from a long ago memory. He could only hope it would still go to the right people.

When the voice on the other side was familiar, he let out his breath and smiled. “Hola mi amigo. Si, desmasiados años. Por fin, te estoy pidiendo ese favor.”

 

 

=18712datelog=logsecure

=27522wickerman::login

=attn::4460smith::

::27522wickerman:: What news on our protégé?

::4460smith:: Operating at optimum levels sir. Consistently scoring perfectly across all tests. He is quite a wonder.

::27522wickerman:: Would you consider him ready for activation?

::4460smith:: More than ready sir.

::27522wickerman:: Good. I am sending his first assignment under the standard three part encryption. Quite low level. You may monitor him throughout but no instruction. Testing the merchandise, you understand.

::4460smith:: Of course sir. You will not be disappointed.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Running to nowhere.

JULY 19. MANCHESTER

Billy looked at the man across from him in the dark, huddled in the remains of an abandoned petrol station. Dominic was shivering profusely, much more than Billy because of the feverish sheen of sweat on his skin. He clutched his dislocated arm much as he had since the morning, and beneath the bruises on his face, his skin was splotchy yellow.

Looking down at the gun in his hands, guilt pinched in Billy’s guts. He’d stopped them here for the night, though it went against his instincts to do it. He was certain this had not ended, that someone else would come after him. His instincts also told him to leave this injured man who was slowing him down and get moving, to hell with him.

But he couldn’t. Charlie, Dominic—nobody, as far as the world was concerned—had a history so similar to Billy’s own, he simply had to have some answer, he had to be a part of whatever had brought Billy here.

Dominic squirmed against the cupboard he leaned against, wriggling and whimpering a bit.

Billy stood up, cautiously looking through the windows that weren’t boarded up as he tucked the gun into the back of his trousers again, pulling his jacket down over it. “Stay here,” he commanded. Dominic didn’t answer; he just remained huddled and fussing. “And be quiet.”

Scanning the surroundings, Billy made his way out of the decrepit building and toward the well-lit group of shops a quarter mile down the road. They’d made it to the outer suburbs of the city, mostly neighborhoods and small shopping centers. He turned up the collar of his jacket and headed into one corner shop, noting where the security cameras were and doing what he could to keep his face out of their view.

He made his purchases, careful to keep track of his cash. Every time he had to acquire cash put him in more danger, but without credit and now spending for two, he would have to do it twice as often. Again, the idea of simply leaving Dominic behind was looking better and better. Jogging quickly back to the petrol station, he hesitated, scanning the place warily. It would be easy to simply walk away, to get moving and put the other man out of his mind and try to get on by himself like he had done before all this.

Still, he went back in, skirting the old purchase counter and finding Dominic right where he’d left him, sweating and squirming and looking pathetic.

“Oi, I brought food,” he said, pulling out a bag of crisps, two sandwiches, and a bottle of juice.

Dominic’s eyes widened at the sight of food, biting eagerly into one of the sandwiches, but slowing after the first bite with a look of disgust. “Feel like shit.”

“You look like it too,” Billy offered, eating his own sandwich eagerly.

“Your fault.”

“Aye.”

Dominic dropped his sandwich and kept fidgeting and writhing against the cabinet behind him, his face crumpled in pain.

“What’s wrong with you?” Billy asked through his own mouthful, amending it at Dominic’s dirty look. “Apart from the rest.”

Dominic wriggled again, “Itches like mad.”

“What does?”

“My back,” he grumbled, “I can’t reach it.”

Billy froze, dropping his on sandwich on its wrapping. “When did that start?”

“In the morning. I don’t know,” Dominic squirmed and grumbled, “Don’t remember.”

“Why didn’t you tell me that before?” Billy growled, drawing the gun on him again.

Dominic’s eyes went wide at the gun and then immediately raging, “What? Because you give a fuck that I’m hurt at all? What’s a fucking itch, right?”

“Shut up. Be quiet and get down on your front,” Billy hissed.

“Why?” Dominic flared.

“Because I fucking told you to.”

When Dominic still didn’t move, Billy snatched him by the collar and dragged him down. Holding him with a knee to the back of his neck, Billy wrenched up the back of his jacket and jersey. Dominic wailed, in clear pain now with pressure on his bad shoulder, his voice going high and tight in his throat and his hands spreading out in complete surrender.

Billy tucked the gun away as his hand searched Dominic’s clammy skin in the dim. He grabbed quickly for the duffle, finding the torch and searching his back. Sure enough, between the shoulder blades was an odd raised welt, red with a rash. Thinking quickly as Dominic squirmed beneath him, he dug for the pocketknife. “Be still. This is going to hurt.”

“Already fucking hurts!” Dominic yelled, “What did I do now?”

Billy said nothing, but leaned harder on him as he used the tip of the knife to make a small incision over the welt, then worked through the blood welling up to flip the thing out through the skin, gripping it in his fingertips to draw out all its spidery wires. Dominic whined through bared teeth, his legs kicking ineffectually.

Letting him go, he brought the thing around and shined the light on it so Dominic could see. He glared and growled as he pushed himself up, but quieted as he really looked, seeing Billy’s fingers swipe his blood from the tiny thing, the light inside it shifting from green to blinking red.

Billy put it down on the chipping linoleum and smashed it with the knife butt as he had the memchip in Dominic’s PID, sitting back on his heel.

“What the fuck was that?” Dom muttered, clutching his arm again with a wince.

“I don’t know. But we have to move, they’ll—" he stopped abruptly at a noise.

“But why wo—"

“Shhh,” Billy hissed, sure he’d heard something, a nearby sound. It came again, a minute crunch and scrape of broken glass from outside of the building. Billy whipped out the pistol again, thrusting Dominic back down against the cabinets, but as he did, his foot bumped against the still lit torch, its light like a beacon to their obvious hiding place. Suddenly there were shots, the distinctive _pewpew_ sound, and bits of the cheap particle board cabinet exploding too close. Dominic made a noise of terror, covering his head as Billy darted noiselessly to the narrow entry to the area behind the counter, aimed and squeezed off one shot at the first shadow that moved, ringing loud without its own silencer. The assailant crumpled to the floor with a thump, and all was quiet again. Dominic curled fetally against the cabinets, clutching his arm and breathing fast, his eyes wide as saucers.

“Are you hurt?”

“Wha—?”

“Are you shot?” Billy asked firmly.

“N-no.”

Billy grabbed the torch, stood and moved slowly toward the gunman, keeping his own pistol trained on him, but he didn’t move. Light shining on the widening bloodpool beneath the man’s head and the wound to the cheek told Billy he’d made his mark. Something about it was irritating; the messiness, the inefficiency, usually he was much better than this, cleaner. He could not fathom where that thought came from, even as he committed this man’s broken face to memory.

After sweeping around the building for anyone else, he leaned down, grabbing the assailant’s gun and checking the magazine. He searched him, finding a second magazine and a PID. Flipping the dead man over, he yanked up his shirt and searched with his fingers, shining the light. This was harder, as this man had no welt, no rash to show, but anatomically, it was in the same place, just to the left side of the fifth thoracic vertebrae.

“Dominic,” he called, “Come out here.”

The was a shifting sound and Dominic’s voice, “Ah…no, thanks. I’m having a really bad day.”

“Come on, it’s alright now.”

Dominic slowly made his way out, shivering and disheveled, and Billy handed him the torch, “Hold it here,” he instructed, and used the knife to cut and pull a chip from the dead man’s back, both of them watching as it blinked in the exact same way as the first.

“See that?” Billy asked, “This guy has one too, and he just tried to kill the pair of us. And he’s no cop.”

“What is it?” Dominic asked, sounding both curious and terrified. “Why does he… Why did _I_ have that thing in me?”

“I don’t know,” Billy shook his head, wiping his bloody hands on the man’s trousers. “I think it’s part of how they find us. We’ve got to move now, they’ll know this happened. They’ll send more of them.”

To Billy’s surprise, Dominic nodded, stumbling quickly back behind the counter. Billy followed, finding him struggling to wrap up the food with a bad arm. Billy pushed him aside and did it, tucking the second gun and extra ammo inside the duffle and then looking him over. “You’re sure you’re not hurt?”

Dominic lifted the eyebrow above his good eye.

“You didn’t get hit?” Billy amended.

“No,” Dominic looked down at the body again, looking bemused.

“What?”

Dominic shook his head again. “I thought… I guess I thought it would be scarier, but… I feel like I’ve seen it before.”

“Aye,” Billy nodded, understanding the feeling. “Me too.”

They quickly ducked out, heading for the wide flood plain behind the station and trudged through the dark, damp grass, keeping the lights of main road in sight but staying well away from them.

“How did I get that thing in me?” Dominic asked again in the dark.

“I don’t know,” Billy murmured, mulling the same thing over in his head, and then out loud. “I pulled one of those out of myself a month ago. Same as you, it itched like mad,” Dominic’s head turned toward him as they walked. “You had one. He had one. It all has to be connected, I just don’t know how or why.”

They walked on in silence through a light drizzle for an hour, the far off swish of cars on the road and their headlights keeping them on track. Dominic’s hair was darkened as he walked in front of Billy with his head down, plastered to his head making his prominent ears stick out. He clutched at his arm, still quaking with shivers under his wet clothes.

Finally, down a country lane a couple of miles from the motorway, they came upon an old garage on an empty lot, remains of old building materials and bricks lying about. A swift but thorough sweep of the property told Billy it was vacant and rarely, if ever visited, so they settled in a corner of the corrugated metal building where the roof was still intact. Billy built a very small fire, using a battery scavenged from an old forklift to get a spark on the driest wood he could find, masking the light and smoke with a makeshift damper of bricks and soaked cardboard. It was enough to warm their small corner of the building somewhat.

Dominic had devoured the remains of his sandwich and was leaning against a support, still cradling the arm, shivering and looking pallid. Twenty-four hours ago, this same man had tried to kill him, something he had to be constantly reminded of throughout the day. But now, even as he sat looking pathetic from the state he was in, he was all Billy had.

“Come here,” Billy said, making a decision. “Lie down on the floor.”

Dominic looked him over distrustfully and smirked. “Think I won’t, if it’s all the same to you. Every time I do that, you hurt me some more.”

Billy looked back at the fire for a moment, nodding. He pulled the gun from his trousers and put it on top of the duffle, albeit still well out of Dominic’s reach. “Fine. You’re not a hostage. Matter of fact, you’re slowing me down, so if you want to leave, then do it. Go.”

Dominic’s eyes, bright in the fire, looked back curiously, but his brows pinched at the idea, and the fear of being alone and away from everything he ever thought he knew.

“See?” Billy confirmed for him, “You can’t go back, can you? Not after what you’ve seen today. I know what it’s like. It’s weirder for me though, seeing as you were the one trying to kill me yesterday.”

“So why didn’t you shoot me like you did him?”

Billy looked over at the gun. Why hadn’t he? He had plenty of time. He had even pulled that trigger expecting to be done with it then. “It jammed. Just like it did when you tried to kill me.”

Dominic looked at the gun for a minute as well, the uncertainty of having no memory of the last several days, the interruption of his routine, the vast unknown tomorrow would bring. He finally scooted up from the wall, “Fine,” he said as he lay on the cement near the fire with a grunt of pain, “Why am I lying here?”

Billy knelt on his right side, pulling his arm from its clutch on the injured one. “I’m going to fix your arm.” He brought Dominic’s hand down to his side and then bent it at the elbow toward the roof. Just the movement made Dominic tense up with pain. Billy carefully pushed his free hand under Dominic’s jacket to feel the mangled shoulder joint underneath. “It’s going to hurt.”

Dominic laughed painfully, “Figures. Arsehole.” But he lay still, prone, eyes worriedly looking up at Billy’s face as he felt the weirdness of the dislocation under muscle and skin and damp cotton. He brought Dominic’s bent arm toward his stomach, feeling the joint move wrongly, then carefully brought the arm in an arc from there, up and around to meet the floor. Dominic’s face crumpled up in pain as he hissed, but the joint did not cooperate. Billy repeated the motion once again, leaning his weight on the joint to coax it, and finally with a half-swallowed shout from Dominic, it popped back into place.

Billy moved away immediately, as Dominic lay catching his breath, a couple of pain induced tears slipping over his temples as he tested the arm. “Fucking hell,” he muttered with a laugh, “Feels amazing.”

Billy raised an eyebrow and sat back in his place. He did not know how he had known how to do that, fix a dislocation. “You probably shouldn’t move it too much for awhile. Let the muscles settle back where they’re meant to go.”

Dominic hummed, high off endorphins the effort had set off. Ignoring the advice, he wriggled out of his jacket and tugged the football jersey off, twisting it up to try to wring the rain from it. He draped it over the bricks caging the fire to dry, then shrugged the jacket back on over his shivering frame, drawing his knees up and rubbing his shins through his damp jeans, looking over at Billy speculatively as his hand explored his repaired shoulder under the leather.

“How did you get here?” he asked. “To Manchester, I mean. How did you figure someone was after you?”

Billy turned his attention to the flames, feeding it branches from a dead tree and the blocky ends of cut two-by-fours. This last month had been a wash of utter fear, of looking at the faces of strangers and suddenly seeing enemies everywhere. He’d used all the cash he had on a bus ticket chosen not only because it was the cheapest fare, but also because something about Manchester rang a bell he just could not place. He tried to keep out of sight, away from high security places, avoiding people who would ask him questions he could not answer, who would hurt him because he did not fit into this odd society any longer. Even if he tried to figure out what about it was off, he could not remember why he suspected it in the first place. He knew things were missing that used to exist, but could not place what they were, and that people spoke of those wars and the past as if they were a bad memory that was long over. Some days he had watched families in the park, children playing with their parents, and wondered if he had ever been that small and happy himself.

“Billy?”

“Hmm?”

Dominic cocked his head in the firelight, his face perplexed and exhausted, “I think I just asked you something, but I don’t remember it now.”

Billy nodded, the flames dancing in his eyes, “’S okay. It doesn’t matter.”

Dominic blinked at the fire, and before long he lay down and curled up, falling asleep within a few minutes. Billy watched the rise and fall of Dominic’s breathing, finding it stupid and naïve to sleep in the presence of someone he oughtn’t trust so readily, though something about that felt good and safe.

He didn’t allow himself to sleep, jerking out of moments of blankness at any tiny sound, from wood popping in the fire to Dominic shifting in slumber. It gradually occurred to him over the course of the night that he was going about things all wrong. It was dangerous idea to attempt to leave the city in this manner: on foot, and with a dwindling supply of cash, no proper clothing and no real goal in mind, leaving an obvious trail behind them. He could only hope those spider things were the only tracking devices they had inside of them. Dominic’s PID now had no memchip, and should they go anywhere that required identification, it would be a red flag if ever there was one. They would need to procure identification if they were going to manage to blend in to this world, or else hole up and hide, never understanding why they were being hunted down in the first place.

Billy took out his own PID and looked again at the new identity he had become before leaving London. Vince Sandhurst. Another name and persona that meant as little to him as Jamie Holmes had after he had chosen to call himself Billy. Fear roiled in his stomach to remember how he’d gotten it, by sheer dumb luck and running into the right people.

If they could be called the right people at all.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A plan both fails and succeeds, and discoveries are made.

JULY 24. MANCHESTER

Billy woke to the sudden click and squeak of the motel room door, the gun in his hand trained on the doorway before his eyes even focused on Dominic coming through it. “What are you doing?” he stuttered, looking over a carrier bag in his hand and lowering the gun.

“I was hungry,” Dominic shrugged, setting the room key and the bag down on the small chipped table before expanding, “I got some for you too.”

“Did you steal my money?” Billy stood, glancing around for his wallet, more angered by the fact that he had fallen asleep, and deeply enough that Dominic had given him the slip.

“It was only a few pounds,” Dominic insolently lifted his chin, “Cut me a break. I’ve hardly been able to eat for a week.”

He watched as Dominic pulled out two cartons of curry with some plastic forks, pushing one his direction before sitting down and starting in on his own. Billy shook his head, busying himself by checking the magazine in the gun yet again, trying to regain his bearings in his exhaustion.

It had taken couple of days to get back into the city proper, and then several more of reconnaissance to find out where in the whole of Manchester they’d find the sort of people they needed. This was made even more difficult by the state of Dominic, who’d taken his whinging to a whole new level by the morning after the chip had come out of his back, but by that evening he’d been so obviously ill that Billy considered just finishing him off and going on alone. But he also remembered the same thing had happened to him in the days after he’d got rid of his own, so instead, he’d risked Vince Sandhurst’s credit for the first time to check them into this seedy, filthy motel, keeping the curtains drawn and waiting for Dominic to ride out the vomiting and tremors, nightmares when he slept and panic attacks and hallucinations when he didn’t. For his part, Dominic came out of it faster than Billy had, if he was up and about now, though he still had the gaunt, bruised, hollowed eyed look of some kind of addict, even now as he inhaled his food.

He scrubbed his hand over his face again, a week’s worth of beard on him now. He had braved the launderette across the street a couple of times while Dominic was ill, so at least the few changes of shirts and jeans they had between them weren’t nearly so bad, and the benefit of a shower was worth risking the credits on the room. Still, Billy had been on edge the entire time, keeping the gun in his hand as Dominic cried with the pain wracking his body, certain someone would call the police. He’d barely slept at all, resting only if Dominic was quiet and incapacitated, keeping half his mind sharp to any sound out of the ordinary. Ever since Dominic had been chasing him, sleep seemed a far off concern, at least until now, feeling bleary and disoriented to have been woken up, and that made him nervous.

His stomach growled, and he finally set the gun on the table next to the carton to open it and shovel the food into his mouth.

Dominic pulled a handful of coins out of his pocket and pushed it over, which Billy snatched and counted before pocketing it. “Where’s the rest?”

“In your wallet,” Dominic said, eyes cutting from under lowered brows, resenting the accusation, “I only took enough for food.”

“We need all of it, you fuckwit. I don’t even think they’ll talk to us without seeing at least what I had.”

“Well if we don’t eat, we won’t need IDs anyway; we’ll be dead,” Dominic snapped right back. “I don’t see why you don’t just do what you did before, get money from someone. Steal it.”

“Do you not listen?” Billy countered, “There are cameras everywhere. On every street, in nearly every shop. Every single time we go anywhere, they can see. Add to that knocking over a store or summat, and they’ll be right back on us, don’t you see that?”

“I don’t—” Dominic stopped, frustration fierce on his face as he huffed, “I can’t remember everything you say, okay? I’ve been puking my guts out for a week, I’ve got you telling me constantly I tried to kill you, I don’t know who I am or who they are or why people are after us. And neither do you. Alright? You come in and turn my whole fucking world upside down, and I don’t—” He stood up and tossed his empty carton in the bin, tugging his shirt off over his head. “Quit fucking acting like I should know things. I don’t know anything about anything anymore and it fucking scares me.” He pulled a small package of disposable razors out of the bag as well, his eyes daring Billy to dispute such a lofty purchase. “I’m going to shower. Want to feel like a fucking human again, at least.”

Billy took in the fading yellow bruises, skinny ribs and the healed-over scab on Dominic’s back as he tugged the warped, sticky bathroom door closed behind him, chewing over Dominic’s words along with his curry, irritated that he was right. Everything was confusing right now, to both of them. Billy had very little to go on, and no plan, and nothing irritated him more than that. All he wanted was to get as far away from here as possible, as fast as possible, and they simply could not do that without functioning PIDs. So far, Vince Sandhurst’s identity had not brought him down, but until now he’d avoided using his credit and thus leaving a trail.

On top of that, he didn’t even have more than £80 in his pocket. He’d had to pay a lot more than that for Sandhurst’s memchip back in London, and the black market here was unlikely to be much different.

The motel was deep in the city, in walking distance of many of the old warehouses and canals, derelict areas where shady business was often conducted. All he had to go on was his previous experience in London, which he had fallen into by sheer luck and just as much to have come out of it with his throat intact. When Dominic had been quiet, sleeping through the withdrawal, he’d darted into the libraries for quick internet searches as well as simply walking about and listening to the goings on around him, catching bits of conversation between some less than wholesome looking people. One in particular tended to hang about on the same corner on the outskirts of a shopping district through much of the day, and Billy had observed a couple of deals done for some sort of small packets. More scouting told him that particular corner was strategically out of range of the city cameras, and the one that did cover it appeared to be broken and had fallen on the wayside of the city repair tally.

There was still the problem of the money, though. The biggest problem, really.

Dominic emerged from the bathroom with a dingy towel round his waist and nicks bleeding on his chin, but looking better for it nonetheless. He sat down on the end of the bed, a certain light in his eyes. “We don’t have enough money, you said. You don’t even think they’ll talk to us without seeing it, right?”

Billy nodded, wondering where this was going.

“How much credit do you have? The chip you’ve got in your PID right now.”

Billy pulled it out, thumbing into Sandhurst’s banking files to look, “Not a lot, maybe £400.”

“Then we’ll trick them,” Dominic concluded. Billy eyed him skeptically until he elaborated, “Find an ATM, withdraw it in large notes. We’ll find some paper, cut it into the right shape and then roll it with the real notes on top. If we don’t hand it right over first thing, just tease them with it…”

“Then what?” Billy asked. “What about when they do get it, and want to count it? These people want money first, that’s all they’re going care about.”

“We’ll distract them, then.”

“How?”

Dominic shrugged, his bad shoulder finally arching back into it, “Talk to them. We can’t just go in guns blazing. It’ll be better if we don’t go in looking like we’re a threat. Neither of us look it, do we? At least, you might not if you shave. We’ll look like a pair of bloody chavs in to get fake IDs so we can impress girls.”

Billy knitted his brows, shaking his head. It was a completely lousy plan, like as naught to get one or both of them killed.

“Well, it’s that or we steal some money, ‘s all I’m saying,” Dominic muttered, tugging off his towel and striding around the bed to find the cleaner pair of denims and tugging them on. “You don’t have a better one, or we’d be done with this already.”

“If I didn’t have to cart you around I wouldn’t have to do this in the first place.”

“Yeah?” Dominic spread his arms out, invoking a fight, “You might have mentioned that a week ago when I could have gone home and forgotten all about you instead of getting dragged through your batshit conspiracy theories. Ignorance is fucking bliss, isn’t it?”

Billy held back on the idea of bringing the remaining bruise under Dominic’s eye from sickly yellow back to vivid purple. He was more trouble than he was worth.

“The least you could do is take a nap, you know. It might make you a bit less of a prick,” Dom tossed behind him, pulling his shirt back over his head, “If I was still going to kill you, I would have done it by now, instead of bringing you curry.”

 

 

JULY 26. MANCHESTER

“Let me do the talking.”

“You said that already.”

“Aye well, listen for once,” Billy looking at him to drive home his point. “And hold on to that duffle, but don’t—”

“Don’t look like I’m guarding it with my life, I know, you said that already.” Dominic shot back, “Quit telling me. I know the plan. But I still don’t know why I can’t have the other gun ready like you do.”

Billy shook his head, their target coming into sight on the corner. He didn’t like this, any of it, one bit. But it was all they had to go on. He took a breath and plastered a smile on his face as they approached the man leaning on the corner.

“Oi mate!” Billy tried, “H’lo. We, ah,” he glanced at Dominic, who wore a ridiculous grin. “We noticed you seem to know how to get things.”

The man looked away down the street. “I don’t know you,” he muttered with a heavy foreign accent.

“No, not yet. Don’t know until you meet, eh?” Billy held out a friendly hand, “Name is Vince.”

The man ignored him, settling his eyes on Dominic. “I possibly know how to get things,” he said, taking in the sickly state of him, “Depends on if you have something for me.”

“We do,” Billy answered, “We’ve plenty of money, depending on what you’re offering.”

The man glanced down the street again, and Billy observed his line of sight, watching the cameras, watching the traffic, the people walking down the more well kept shopping district a couple of blocks up. This man knew his profession well.

“Reefer,” the man’s accent twisted his words in intriguing ways, his eyes moving to Dominic again, “Benzo. Cat piss. Special K. Microdot. That is my tenner fare.”

“Not for me, mate,” Dominic smiled. “Clean as a whistle, me.” The man smirked as if he didn’t believe this.

Billy stepped forward, “’S not what we’re after, anyway. We’re looking for chips.”

The man chuckled loftily, saying a word or two in another tongue, “Not my business,” he looked them both up and down again, “You could not afford it if it was.”

“Like I said, we have money. We need chips,” Billy muttered, pushing his hands farther in his pockets around his prizes.

“Mate, it’s like this, eh? I want to take my girl to the Continent,” Dominic leaned in to butter the man up, “But I’ve got a file, you know. Stupid shite. Stole a moterbike, got caught, got bracelets. So I got rid of that chip and now it’s a great big fuss getting anywhere outside Lancashire, you get me?”

The man leaned over to spit on the sidewalk. “And your clean cut comrade?”

“He’s harmless, nervous as fuck-all doing this,” Dominic glanced at Billy, and back, looking wicked, “He’s got a nice wife and a naughty girlfriend on the side. Never shall the two meet, eh? Keeps him up all night long, that one.”

The foreigner looked over the pair of them again, smirking at Billy, and then trained his eyes on the cameras again, “You have money, you say. You will need more than you think. Two or three hundred. Each. More if you want clean credit.”

“We’ve got that,” Billy supplied, and the man simply stared at him until he produced, just the end of one of Dominic’s handmade rolls of cash from his pocket before tucking it back in. They were crude, cuts of butcher paper Dominic had soaked with a dark shirt then dried and dirtied the edges, rolled with a real note on top and tightly wrapped with rubber bands. For all his trouble, all it would take was a closer look to see they were fake.

The man seemed to think it over again before striding off. Dominic walked confidently up beside him, leaving Billy to follow behind. “I am Mikael,” he told Dominic with a sleazy smile. “It is my name today. Tomorrow maybe Ivan, or Viktor, I cannot decide. I take you to people I know. After this, I will see you again. Yes?”

“Not if I can help it, mate,” Dom answered.

He led them through the shopping district and to an old brick storefront, which he bypassed and went down the alleyway to the back, knocking on the steel door beside a rusty loading dock. After a pause and a second knock, the door was cracked, and Mikael spoke to the occupant, again in his own tongue, a smooth rolling language Billy finally guessed might be Russian.

Mikael conversed with the man, a back and forth Billy took as the occupant being unsure and Mikael doing some convincing, gesturing to the pair of them while Dominic held onto the duffle and smiled stupidly. He tried to do the same, attempting to look harmless even as everything about this sparked every instinct he had to simply turn around and leave. The pistol he had tucked beneath his shirt and jacket felt huge and heavy; surely these people would search them.

“What is in bag?” the man at the door asked, as if reading Billy’s mind, and Billy could feel his pulse tripping.

“Just clothes,” Dominic supplied, even unzipping it to show the man, the mess of shirts and jeans inside thankfully covering the second pistol and the ammo inside. “Hoping to take my girl to the airport by afternoon, _da_?” he grinned, picking up on the word in their language.

The man shrugged and closed the door. Mikael smiled back to them, “He goes to ask his boss.”

Soon after they were admitted inside and led through shelves and boxes of goods to a dimly lit back room and a well dressed man sitting behind a desk, flanked by two huge hulking goons, as well as Mikael and the doorman. It was progress, getting inside, and yet made the situation six times more difficult, and he doubted Dominic even recognized the danger they were in. The room was an office of some kind, boxes piled in corners but little else, and only one way out. One of the goons and the doorman stood beside the boss behind the desk, while the other stood by the door near Mikael, blocking a quick getaway.

The man behind the desk was clean cut, older than his comrades though not elderly, perhaps not the boss of this operation but higher level than the rest; he had the confident arrogance of someone in a position of power as he shook their hands and questioned them, Dominic recounting their story as he had told it to Mikael. Billy recalled his bid to do the talking with some irritation. He didn’t know why they appeared to respond to Dominic better, but it seemed to work, so he let it play.

“…so we need new chips.” Dominic finished. “We have money.”

The boss looked to Mikael again, who nodded, speaking in Russian. Dominic listened intently, showing a certain innocent sort of interest.

“Okay, you give me money, and I give you chips,” the boss leaned back in his chair smugly.

“Oi, not so fast now,” Dominic grinned, “That’s our hard earned cash, you know, we’re not just going to hand it over before seeing the goods.”

“You doubt my product?” The boss eyed him from narrowed yet smiling eyes. “You are maybe too sharp for me,” he smiled, “Maybe you are from police, eh? A spy.”

Billy inhaled slowly, but Dominic was quick on the draw, “Do we look like cops? I got my arse kicked only last week, yeah? Big temperamental bastard didn’t like my attitude. Still look a mess. Feel like it too.”

“We have the money,” Billy put in, pulling out two of the rolls, waving them around enough for the man to see before pocketing them again.

The boss stroked his chin, shrugging and then sent the doorman out for something, “Okay. I give you chips. You,” he gestured to Dominic, pulling a camera out of the desk, “Maksim, take his picture.”

As the goon had Dominic stand up against a white backdrop tacked to the wall and he smiled widely for his photo, the doorman returned with a plastic box and netbook.

The boss chattered to them as he fed Dominic’s photo and thumbprint into the computer, speaking of the quality of his chips and how they were indistinguishable from the real thing due to his flawless program, to which Dominic fed his ego with interest and compliments. Billy found himself following the man’s keystrokes as he then selected a chip from the compartmented box, fitted it into the netbook and made several more changes.

“There,” the boss proclaimed, fitting the PID back together, “You are new man now.” He held the device out to Dominic, but lifted it out of reach. “Now you give money.”

“Thanks,” Dominic said, then grinned back and spoke to the man again. “ _Spasiba. Ya blaga daren Vam za pomashch._ ”

The boss’s eyebrows rose, and his goons stood up straighter, shifting their feet. “You did not say you spoke Russian.”

Dominic’s grin faltered, “Ah, yeah. Only a little, you know, from school.”

“Now why would you do this to me,” the boss muttered, and his goons moved in.

Billy was on his feet in a heartbeat, quickly incapacitating the first who came at him from behind with a blow to the throat. He pulled his gun and immediately shot the boss as he reached for a weapon, but with a shout the second goon pulled a knife, while Mikael and the doorman were all coming at him at once, with nowhere in the small room to move. He fought hard, landing kicks and a sharp crack to someone’s skull before three loud, quick shots had three heavy bodies landing atop him.

The goon’s bulk was shifted, and Dominic yanked him to his feet, the second pistol that had been hidden in the duffel in his grip. “You alright? Fucking hell, I shot them!”

“You fucking eejit,” Billy growled, darting immediately to the door, scouting the hallway, quickly taking out another that had come running from the storefront. “Why the fuck didn’t you tell me you spoke Russian?”

“I didn’t know!” Dominic spat back, looking wide-eyed and stunned at the pile of men and the boss sprawled back in his chair with a wound between his eyes. “You… Christ.”

Billy kept his gun trained on the hallway, “Where’s our stuff? You have it?” Dom lifted their duffel and came to Billy’s side, “No, get your PID! Take the chips too, take that box and the computer, take—” he stopped, shooting another man that came running from the front, “take it all and put it in our bag. All of it, Dom! Go!”

Billy left the hallway only briefly enough to search the drug dealer’s pockets and take his cash, working through the goons as well. “Search the boss, open the drawers. Hurry, we have to get out of here!”

Dominic stuffed the bag, pushing the pistol he’d used down into it as well, and Billy thrust him down the hall to the alleyway. Dominic turned in the direction they’d come, but Billy grabbed the back of his shirt and hauled him around, “No, this way.”

He led Dominic through the alleys at a fast clip, tucking his own gun out of sight as they headed away from the building to another block altogether, pausing briefly as they came back to sunlight. “You’re alright?”

“Yeah,” Dominic said, panting heavily.

Billy led them away, shaking his head. “Why’d you fucking do that? You buggered up the whole thing! And since when d’you speak Russian?”

“I don’t know,” Dominic repeated, “I didn’t know, but when I heard them talking, I could understand it. And anyway, I didn’t bugger it up, you were the one making them nervous, all jittery the way you were. They liked me. They said so, Mikael told them we were a pair of dumb kids, just like I said.”

They paused in a doorway, catching their breath, and Billy looked him over, as well as himself. There was fine blood spatter on Dominic’s shirt, and more obvious stains on Billy’s clothes. “We need to change.”

He pushed Dominic along, down another alleyway and behind a rubbish bin where he dug through the duffle for a cleaner pair of jeans and made Dominic change his shirt.

“They didn’t have guns. Why didn’t they have guns?” Dominic asked.

“I don’t know,” Billy was just as confused by that. “The one had a knife, and I thought the boss was going for a gun. They didn’t search us for weapons either, I was sure they would.”

“Why wouldn’t they—” Dom started, but paused in fright as the sound of police sirens sounding from multiple directions. “What do we do?” he whispered.

Billy finished doing his fly and glanced around, taking the duffel on his own shoulder. “Buy some new clothes. Get train tickets away from here.”

“Where?”

Billy shrugged, shaking his head. “Shite, I dunno. Glasgow, maybe.”

“You said we were going to the Continent.”

“We told them that, and I don’t know if we left any of them alive in there, we’re not going to go that way if we did,” Billy countered. “But we’ve got to leave Manchester, and fast.”

Dominic nodded agreement and they strode out, a police car speeding passed them. “It worked,” he said eventually. Billy eyeballed him with disbelief. “Well, it did! We got what we needed.”

“Aye,” Billy finally chuckled, considering the situation, “We're lucky we're still alive, you twat. It was a massive mess. We left a pile of bodies back there, ‘s probably crawling with police by now. Speaking Russian. What other languages to you speak?”

“I have no idea,” Dom laughed, adrenaline still pounding through him as he punched the air in excited victory. “’S bloody cool though, innit?”

“Dunno about that,” Billy muttered, considering how many people had been killed since he’d met this man. “What’s your name anyway? The one they put your PID.”

Dominic pulled it out and looked, “Sasha Yelchin. Sasha? Bastards.”

“I like Dominic better,” Billy quipped. “Anyway, we can change it. We took that bloke’s stuff. I watched how he did it.”

“Dom,” Dominic said, turn around to walk backwards down the sidewalk to grin at Billy. “You called me that. In there, when you were… I like it. It’s weird, like. Familiar.”

Billy nodded, “Okay. Dom.”

“I think we used to do the same thing,” Dominic pondered, turning back around to walk properly. “Before we can remember. I shot those guys, three of them, all moving around you, and I didn’t miss. I didn’t think about it, I just did it.”

“You missed me,” Billy reminded him.

Dom grinned wide, “Yeah.” Then he frowned, his brows pinching together as if he was recalling something he couldn’t quite comprehend.

 

 

=26712datelog=logsecure

=27522wickerman::login

=attn::171244captain::

::27522wickerman:: Why is there a breaking report of a massacre all over my newsfeed?

::171244captain:: We are doing everything we can to erase it. Though I think it’s prudent to tell you, Iriny Svetlka was fairly high on our target list. It’s convenient.

::27522wickerman:: Convenient my arse, Hill, your rogue operatives left seven corpses for the local idiots to find. They’re the only ones even capable of doing this.

::171244captain:: It is a lead on them, sir. I have operatives deployed all over the area.

::27522wickerman:: Yet you have not caught them. In over a week’s time. There hasn’t been hit of this caliber in the public view since the wars! It’s going to be a madhouse if the press can’t be subdued... I’m going to have the whole goddamned Global Assembly breathing down my neck over this. Not only have you lost two malfunctioning assets, you’ve compromised our entire directive.

::171244captain:: In my defense, sir, Beesting was Lear’s responsibility.

::27522wickerman:: Lear has no responsibility now, that responsibility is yours. You had better scrub this so clean I can eat from it. And find those two bastards and annihilate them. Or I will find someone who can.

::171244captain:: Yes sir.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As an old player exits the fray, a new one enters.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Read the warnings again, please. This is not your grandmother's fluffy assassin fic.

JULY 26. LONDON

“Thank you, darling,” Ian smiled as the waiter returned with the bottle to top off his glass of red.

“Is anything wrong?” the lovely young man asked, and Ian smiled at the genuine curiosity of the question. This one was a new addition at the Burgundy Room, having caught Ian’s eye as soon as he’d sat down a week ago, and had served him nearly every evening since, keeping his glass full and asking after his work, giving an old man a platform to spin many a story about the triumphs and woes of the accounting world, stocks, bonds and other drivel the lad likely didn’t retain.

Ian leaned back against the velvet cushions and looked around the gentleman’s club. He’d frequented the Burgundy for many years now, its quiet class more to his taste since so many of the establishments catering to gay men had become over done and over loud. The clientele here were often recognizable just by appearance; executives, financiers, high dollar CEOs, older men with younger escorts that changed hands on many occasions.

The staff were all young, attractive men, outfitted in pressed shirts, slacks and waistcoats—this club didn’t bother with nearly nude objectification, banking that with maturity many a man rather enjoyed his imagination. Names, as well, were relatively unnecessary, even to regulars. Whether or not one knew the name of the pretty young thing who brought him drinks and company was fairly moot after all, it was all designed to make old bastards of Ian’s ilk feel as though they could still rouse interest in something young and beautiful. The lads were well trained and well tipped, but even so, the turnover was high. He didn’t doubt that the young man awaiting his answer would not be here more than a few months at best. Even for that, he was popular, with his ethereal looks and that adorable naïveté.

“Sir?”

“No, no. You know how it is. Long days at a desk minding other people’s money,” Ian lied, twisting the glass on the table and watching the wine glisten in the low light, “Getting too old for it.”

“Better than this, though,” The young man grinned, the gap in his smile somehow made him more real against such perfect skin and unreal eyes. A brief flash of fear past through him, and his gaze dropped as he scrambled to rescind the insult. “I mean, like, you’ve got a real career, you don’t have to work so hard to… shit.”

Ian chuckled, pinching his fingers on the lad’s shirtsleeve. “Don’t worry about it, darling. It takes more than that to upset me.”

The lad flushed, painting pink streaks over his cheeks, “Sorry, I…”

“No need to apologize,” Ian smiled. “We all start somewhere, don’t we?”

The young man took a breath, his eyebrows still pinched expressively. “You’re sure you’re alright?” he asked again, recovering relatively smoothly from his blunder. “Tonight, I mean. You just seem worried about something.”

“Perhaps,” Ian murmured, “But it’s nothing.”

The young man nodded and left, the awkwardness of his blunder still lingering on his face.

Sighing and sipping his wine, Ian watched him return to the bar, and clear his other tables, occasionally flashing that imperfect smile now and again. This young man was lucky in his ignorance and youth, of the history he knew nothing of and would never be taught.

But the worry in his heart far more pressing than he let on. Telling his young waiter the tribulations of a long expected dismissal would not ease his nerves, far less about his own retirement than the fear that he was never to know the fate of those young men under his care. He could only hope he’d reached Viggo in time, and that Viggo could reach them before whatever dissected and reprogrammed abomination of life they’d set loose found them instead.

He had so many regrets, so many rash decisions he’d made in the name of the greater good without looking at all sides. What they had done was not freedom, nor was it peace. All they had done was remove the war from the public, made it invisible, systematically annihilating every uttered breath of dissent, and they continued to do so, because dissent continued to exist. And they had done it at the expense of those young men and women who had unwittingly signed their lives away.

He went back in his head, going over the contents of his office at Melkor quadrant by quadrant in his mind. They had not allowed him to clean out his office. He had been diligent, always careful not to reveal his true motives, but he was also feeling so old. There was the possibility that, in a momentarily lapse, he might have left something behind that could betray those young men, Viggo, or any one of the few people who had knowledge of his defection.

There was nothing for it now. Billy had been the very best because of his instincts and ability to adapt. Viggo was one of the best trackers alive, and a ghost when it came to staying off the grid. Dominic… well, he was touch and go, but he had his talents as well. If Viggo managed to recover his old team, not even Melkor ought to be able to find them. They were the world’s most elite soldiers, and Melkor had made sure they had the best training possible. The best hope they had was that the company’s own insistence of perfection would be its downfall.

“Would you like another Merlot?”

Ian broke from his reverie to look back up at the large eyes of his waiter. “Oh no, thank you. I think I’ll just… have an early night.” He pulled out his billfold, knowing how these youngsters enjoyed their cash, even in this day and age hard currency was one of the things they hadn’t managed to get rid of. “You’re a lucky young man, you know.”

He held out a twenty pound note, waving away the change as he stood and made his way out. It had been many long years since he’d left this place with the sort of company he longed for anyway, he did not know why he kept coming back searching for the imprint of it. Perhaps he was simply too old to find that sort of connection with another again. Perhaps his work had overtaken that part of him.

He pushed his hands into the pockets of his long coat against the evening breeze and trudged along, heading for home.

“Hey! Wait a sec!”

Ian turned, finding his young waiter trotting up behind him, wearing a windcheater over his pressed uniform. “Oh, it’s you. Oughtn’t you be buttering up other daft old men?”

The young man smiled, the gap in his front teeth so endearing. “You were my last table.” He darted a glance back over his shoulder, then back and up at Ian’s face. “I just thought… You seemed quiet tonight, is all. Want some company?”

Ian laughed, “Darling, I know it’s general practice in places like that, but I must have given you the wrong impression. I wasn’t paying for a house call.”

“You would’ve had to pay me a lot more than twenty pounds for that,” the waiter countered, lifting his chin a bit cockily as he pushed his hand into a pocket and withdrew an eCig. He fitted the battery on and chuckled, “Not what I was offering anyway.”

Surprised and chastised, Ian deferred, “I am sorry to offend. Years of past experiences, you see.”

The lad shrugged, drawing off of the eCig and striding up beside him, his eyes cutting up in the lamplight, astonishingly blue. He licked the flavor of the vapors from his lips. “So what is it, then. DOW is down, interest is up?”

“No,” Ian smirked and continued walking, the lad pacing with him. “I’m afraid I lied to you earlier. I was… rather unceremoniously asked to retire today.”

Those wide eyes cut back to him, “You didn’t want to?”

Ian strode along, “I should think I’d have liked to, on different terms. But it’s out of my hands now.”

“Shit, sounds fantastic to me, man,” the lad laughed, his rounded American vowels and this renewed confidence outside of his workplace adding to his appeal.

Ian looked him over for several strides, and the young man let him, unperturbed at being stared at. Of course, a young man with his otherworldly looks must always get that sort of attention. “Would it be uncouth of me to ask your name?”

“Uncouth? Now there’s a word,” the lad laughed, “Casey.”

“Casey?” Ian laughed himself, “Now there’s a name.”

“Fuck off,” Casey grinned good-naturedly. “Would it be _uncouth_ if I asked yours?”

“No, no. Ian.”

“Ian. Good to finally meet you, then.” Casey said, “It’s ridiculous we aren’t supposed to introduce ourselves at Burgundy. Especially to regulars. I’ve brought you wine nearly every night for a week feeling like an asshole.”

Ian sighed, continuing along the route home. He felt unbelievably old in the presence of this young man, and a certain giddiness at the idea that his waiter was remotely interested in him outside of a dark anonymous gentleman’s club.

“So what will you do now?” Casey asked, clarifying, “Now that you’re retired.”

“I have no idea,” Ian answered honestly. It had never occurred to him until now that his work had become his life, and all the things he cared for were not only completely out of his hands but out of his sight as well. None of that mattered anyway, it would only be a matter of time before they sent someone after him. He simply knew too much, and he knew the way their operation worked; secrecy was of the utmost importance. Perhaps they’d reactivate one of his own for the job just to appease Lee’s sadistic nature. That wouldn’t surprise him at all.

He turned in at his old Tudor, a home purchased on Melkor’s hefty salary. It nearly turned his stomach that the organization he’d grown to so despise had also provided and financed so many of his own comforts.

“Nice,” Casey said, glancing around the foyer.

“How many clients have you gone home with?” Ian asked, a fairly brazen question, he very much doubted this young lad would take offence.

“None,” Casey answered nonchalantly, drawing his fingers lightly down the side of a Chinese vase on the table by the stairwell. He peeled off his windcheater, hanging it on the antique coat rack, which left him in his Burgundy uniform again. Sensing Ian’s discomfort as he worked his own jacket onto a hanger and hung it in the closet, Casey smiled, popping the cuffs on the sleeves and tugging apart the waistcoat, giving him a somewhat more casual air.

Ian led him through to the parlor, “Would you like anything? Though, I’m not sure I’ll have anything you’d like on hand.”

“A beer?” Casey asked.

Ian winced, “Aha, I’m afraid, not on hand.”

“It’s okay.”

Ian sat on the settee, pushing his hand over the roughness of his chin. “I’m afraid I’m not the greatest company.”

Casey simply shook his head with a smile, sitting in a wingback armchair with a remarkably regal air. “You’re afraid a lot,” he commented, his expression quiet and with much deeper sympathy in normal household light than at the club.

Ian pondered that, nodding at the clarity of the lad’s observation. “I feel like I… I no longer fit into this world we’ve made. I’ve gotten too old… seen too much change.”

The young man’s vast eyes took that in with understanding and compassion, but at the same time with all the naïveté of his youth. His stubby fingers turned the eCig over and over, though his lithe body seemed so restful. He still would have been a boy when the wars had come to an end, at least in the public’s eyes. He wouldn’t have known or remembered anything being different. Here was the culmination of Melkor’s new world order. Suppressing the human nature of individuality, of mischief, of the desire to push against the grain.

An idea dawning, Ian stood again, crossing the parlor to an old china armoire to bring out a carved box. “Perhaps I’ve something here you might like after all.”

He sat back down, placing the humidor on the coffee table, he turned the knob to break the vacuum seal before opening the lid, bringing out a pouch and some papers. “You might be too young to remember when they outlawed real tobacco cigarettes.” Casey’s eyes took in the entire operation as he pinched some leaves out into a paper, rolled it, and handed it to him, taking a silver lighter to the tip as the young man inhaled.

Casey coughed, tobacco smoke puffing from him as Ian chuckled. “Shit,” he stuttered between coughs, laughing, “That’s fantastic.”

“Mmm,” Ian agreed, setting out an ashtray and sitting back to watch this beautiful young man enjoy what a smoke had once been, not so many years ago, when there had still been balance in the world. “You’re lucky.”

“You said that before,” Casey’s eyes cut back to him again, “What do you mean?”

Ian waved a hand vaguely. “Never mind. You’re so young, you won’t see what I’ve seen. It didn’t used to be this way.”

“How did it used to be?” Casey asked, the curiosity in his eyes so genuine that it tugged at Ian’s heartstrings. He simply shook his head. When he was this boy’s age, young men everywhere were signing up for service, or else forced into it, fighting against tyranny and xenocide and corruption, giving their lives so others could live.

Nothing had really changed at all, and yet, everything had, all in such a short time. The world had become a farce. Peace was imagined. Freedom didn’t exist. This young man was as much a victim as anyone, and he’d never know it.

Casey stood up from his armchair and crawled onto Ian’s lap, his blunt fingers holding out the cigarette for him to take a drag. “I’m not as young as you think,” he purred, and Ian pursed his lips and obeyed, his own hands feeling large and cumbersome as they lit on this young man’s slender thighs.

“I thought you said you weren’t offering,” he murmured through the smoke, his heart panging at such bold youth, firm and strong and yet still terribly boyish beneath fine cloth.

Casey’s fey eyes fell to half-mast even as his cherubic little mouth turned up at the corners. “I’m not,” he murmured, his lips brushing Ian’s cheek as he offered another pull, a butterfly kiss with so much tenderness the sent a flutter of pleasure through him. Ian took the drag, watching as the young man sat back on his lap, and casually withdrew something bright and shining from some hidden pocket and then inserted it neatly down into the suprasternal notch between Ian’s collarbones. The breath of surprise he tried to draw caught and gurgled as blood poured into his lungs.

 _So strange_ , Ian thought, at the fact that he did not even have time to be afraid, though his body jerked and his hands fluttered, his mind simply settled with it. A major vessel had been nicked, he could feel his old heart trying in vain to compensate, and yet there was a mere warm trickle at his collar, the rest of the blood was filling his lungs. _So neat and efficient. I won’t even stain the furniture_ , Ian’s mind spared, even as the young man’s sweet, soft expression above him—his head tilted with that infallible curiosity in his crystalline eyes—began to blur and then went blank.

The young man stood up, plucking a tissue from the box on the end table to wipe the blade before closing it and pushing it back into his pocket, watching the spark leave the old man’s eyes.

He brought the fag up to his mouth and took a long drag from it, touching a spot behind his ear. “It’s done.”

    ::Very good. We will send erasures.::

“That’s done, too. They’re waiting outside.”

    ::Excellent. Await further instruction. Out.::

The young man crushed out the end of the smoke, taking the lighter to it to burn away the remains of the paper and let it drop into the ashtray. Plucking the pouch of tobacco and the papers from the box and pocketing them as he looked over the old man’s body, he turned, retrieved his jacket and left by the front door, passing a black van parked on the street that had not been there before.

Back in his building, he took the steps two at a time, grinned at the pretty girl in 5E unlocking her door, and strode up to his own apartment. He peeled off the stuffy waistcoat, shirt and slacks of Burgundy’s to his undervest, dropping them in the bag marked with an M to be destroyed when he left here. Sitting cross-legged on the bed, he brought his prizes out of his coat pockets, spreading out a paper and tapping out some of the loose leaf, rolling it with the flat of his hand on his thigh, exactly as the old man had. Lighting it with the silver lighter, he threw open the window, gripped the top sill and went out feet first, onto the wrought iron fire escape and then up to the topmost ledge of the roof, letting the cold wind take the heat of the mission out of his skin. He took a deep pull off the smoke, closing his eyes and holding it in, letting it coat his lungs.

The old man had been very nice to him. Most of the people he killed were.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Despite the date of my last update, this fic is not abandoned. I had a hard drive failure in 2012 and lost a huge amount of new material on a lot of my WIPs, including this one, and I have a lot of rewriting to do. I will come back to it, please have patience.


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